Rose-Tone and Tomato-Tone. I am going to try alfalfa tea this spring.

You name it and I have tried it including rose fertilizer, tomato fertilizer, Espoma products, alfalfa pellets, compost, llama poop, composted manure. I am sure I could think of others if I tried long enough.

Are you saying it doesn't matter?
Ginny

Ginny,
Yum Yum Mix is an excellent organic fertilizer. I apply it once in the spring, once in mid summer and once in the fall. You may have to mail order it. It is a little pricey, but it is an excellent fertilizer. You can check it out on soilmender.com.
Don B

It doesn't matter in my experience. Why go to the bother of mail ordering something if it is something sold in a local store? Most of the fertilizers I mentioned can be purchased at most garden centers, home improvement stores, local farm stores, etc. The llama poo I got from a local llama farm.

Except for trace micronutrients, fertilizer is fertilizer. They are all nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in varying ratios. Some don't have one or the other but basically they are the same thing.

However, organics can help with microbes and micronutrients for the soil as opposed to synthetics which are also often high salt and have no microbes. Organics also help add organic matter to the soil which is always a good thing.

I'm horrible about remembering to fertilize or do anything else in the garden. I buy them and then forget. It is good that I'm not obsessed with roses.

I use Epona Rose-Tone, bought Holly-Tone and Flower-Tone last week as it was on sale, I used alfalfa meal last year. I used bagged cow manure as well as a top dressing of compost.

Found a good article:

Here is a link that might be useful: organic fertilizers

Thanks to all of you for your ideas. I have read many times to feed with a vegetable/rose fertilizer - 5-10-10. That's easy to find if you go with a chemical fertilizer, but I am trying to go organic. It isn't easy to find a 5-10-10 organic fertilizer, at least not by looking at a label.

Ginny

Most organic fertilizers are much lower in all three constituents than their nonorganic counterparts. They still tend to provide enough nutrients that it counteracts the lower percentages. The article that BorS provided a link to addresses this issue. The last paragraph sums it up best when it says:

"Compared to synthetic fertilizer formulations,organic fertilizers contain relatively low concentrations of actual nutrients, but they perform important functions which the synthetic formulations do not. They increase the organic content and consequently the water-holding capacity of the soil. They improve the physical structure of the soil which allows more air to get to plant roots. Where organic sources are used for fertilizer, bacterial and fungal activity increases in the soil. Mycorrhizal fungi which make other nutrients more available to plants thrive in soil where the organic matter content is high. Organically derived plant nutrients are slow to leach from the soil making them less likely to contribute to water pollution than synthetic fertilizers."

Don't be concerned with duplicating the exact NPK numbers in your organic fertilizer with those that are synthetic.

Do not get hung up on the actual numbers. 5-10-10

It is the lower Nitrogen and higher Phosphorus that you want for flowering. So, anything with the first number lower than the middle number is going to work.

3-5-5, 30-60-30, 10-20-10 all will promote flowering.

I use compost on everything in my garden, and nothing else. I make the compost myself, and then top dress the entire garden with it 3 or 4 times a year - whenever a batch of compost is ready. It's free and organic! My two dozen or so clematis in my tiny city garden look great.

I'm not too picky about fertilizers as long as it is organic, or mostly organic anyway. I feed my clematis along with my roses, and they never seem to complain.

Some of my preferred fertilizers for my roses and clematis are Mills Magic Mix, Dr. Earth for Roses, and Rose-Tone. I also brew alfalfa tea a few times a year and spread the spent alfalfa sludge around my roses and clems a few times a year too.