Best fertilizer for roses in Pakistan: a month-by-month guide

Roses in Pakistan flower backwards from what most gardening advice assumes. The books written for Europe and America talk about a summer bloom. Here, the best roses come between November and March, when the days are cool and the sun isn't cooking the buds. Summer is when the plant sulks.

So the feeding calendar has to be flipped too. If you fertilize for flowers in May, you're wasting it. Here's what to do and when.

The year in three parts

Roughly speaking, a rose in Punjab or Sindh has a build phase from late February to June, a survival phase through the monsoon and the worst of the heat, and a flowering phase from October to March. Each one wants something different.

February to June: build the plant

After the winter flush finishes, prune the bush back by about a third, take out anything dead or crossing, and feed it for growth. This is a nitrogen job. A tablespoon of mustard cake per plant every three weeks, worked into the soil and watered in, or The Master Blend every four to six weeks if you'd rather use one product all year.

You'll get a small flush of flowers in April. Enjoy it, but don't chase it. The point of this period is a big, healthy bush with lots of stems, because every stem is a place a winter flower can come from.

July to September: keep it alive

Stop feeding when the temperature sits above 38 degrees. The plant isn't growing, it's coping, and fertilizer in the soil during a heatwave does more harm than good. Water deeply every second or third day, early in the morning, and mulch the soil surface with dry leaves or coco peat to keep the roots cool.

Monsoon humidity brings black spot and powdery mildew. Spray Shield & Feed at 10ml per litre every two weeks through August and September, in the evening, on both sides of the leaves. Pick off and bin any leaf that's already spotted. Don't leave fallen rose leaves on the soil, that's where the spores overwinter.

October to March: feed for flowers

This is where it counts. As soon as the nights cool down, usually early October in Islamabad and a couple of weeks later in Lahore and Karachi, switch from nitrogen to phosphorus.

Two tablespoons of bone meal per plant, scratched into the top few inches of soil around the drip line and watered in. Once in early October, again in late November, and again in January. Bone meal is slow, so it needs to be in the ground a few weeks before the plant wants it.

Alongside that, a foliar spray of liquid seaweed at 3ml per litre every two weeks from October onward. Seaweed has the natural growth hormones that push bud formation and it helps the flowers hold their colour and last longer on the bush.

And a teaspoon of Epsom salt per plant once in October and once in December. Magnesium keeps the leaves dark green while the plant is spending everything on flowers, and it helps the plant take up the phosphorus you've just given it.

Deadheading

Cut spent flowers off as soon as they fade. Cut back to just above the first leaf with five leaflets, not three, because that's where the next strong flowering shoot comes from. A rose left with dead flowers on it puts its energy into seed and stops producing new buds.

Roses in pots

Everything above applies, but halve the quantities and feed a bit more often, because pots drain nutrients faster. A 12 inch pot gets one tablespoon of bone meal, not two. Repot every two years in late February with fresh soil mixed with a third vermicompost.

Potted roses also dry out fast in winter sun on a rooftop. Check the soil every couple of days even in December.

Common problems

Lots of leaf, no flowers

Too much nitrogen too late. Stop the mustard cake or any high-nitrogen feed and switch to bone meal. Give it four to six weeks.

Buds form but don't open, or open brown

Usually thrips or a fungal problem in humid weather. Shield & Feed every four days for two weeks. Also check the buds for tiny slender insects when you tap them over white paper.

Yellow leaves with green veins

Magnesium or iron. Epsom salt for the first, and humic acid watered in for the second, because most Pakistani soil is alkaline enough to lock iron away even when it's present.

Small flowers

Usually too many buds on one stem, or the plant is underfed. Pinch out the side buds and leave one per stem for bigger flowers, and make sure the bone meal went in on time.

The short version

Nitrogen in spring, nothing in the heat, phosphorus and seaweed from October. Deadhead constantly. Spray for fungus in the monsoon. Do that and a rose bush in Islamabad will flower more or less continuously from November through March, which is what the neighbours will ask you about.

Questions about a specific plant, send a photo on WhatsApp at 0370-9145600.