I just planted 26 HT, FL, CL two months ago and have been using a combination of coffee grounds 1cup, blended up whole bananas 1cup in 1gal h2o, chicken manure 3/4cup, bioflora dry crumbles 1/2 cup, alfalfa pellets 1cup, all scratched into the top dirt and mulched with 3" composted horse manure. Do this once every month and supplement with fish emulsion in between.
Very time consuming but some of my FLs have almost twenty flowers now!

look up alfalfa pellets on this site and you will see how great they are on roses.

I mix alfalfa pellets (small ones) and coffee grinds into the back fill soil as part of my organic soil amendments. Am going to have to start remembering to throw a banana peel in the bottom of the hole, too. I bet the worms and roses love that!

Cheers,
Michelle

I just planted 5 roses last month and added chopped up banana peels, crushed eggshells and coffee grounds into the bottom of the holes along with some bone meal. So far the roses have come along beautifully. All are showing lovely vigorous new growth and 4 of the 5 have buds just about ready to open. I am hoping this is in part due to the added organic matter.

Gilli

Hi,
I just joined today but have grown many roses in the last few years.We have moved late last year and I am planting a new rosegarden right now.Have planted 45 bareroot roses so far and probably 20+ more to go.

My roses get bonemeal,a banana,coffeegrounds and one egg when I plant them.Also I make afalfa tea to spoil them :-) have fun with your new roses :-)

Hello,
Also just joined today. Can't say I've put peels or grounds in the rose hole first. I have two compost piles filled with everything--beautiful dark stuff! Starbucks recycles their grounds and gives bags away for free. Been growing roses for 17 years and just found a good organic fertilizer recipe that I'll try next spring. 4 parts seed meal/alfala pellets, 1 pt dolomite lime, 1/2 pt bone meal 1/2 pt kelp. P.S. clematis love kelp meal!Happy rose growing!

I have some newly planted roses and I wondered how much Banana's and coffee grounds can be put around them without hurting them? I don't want to over do it.

I thought about going to starbucks for a load of grounds but I don't have many roses yet. Maybe I could add the grounds to my evergreen shrubs too? or save the grounds in the garage?

Thanks!
Karen

I just made some banana bread and put the peels in a food processor. I used 5 peels on two roses and put them down about 2 inches. Yesterday I used Monty's Joy juice, growth formula. Hopefully I'm not doing too much. I also planted to bare root roses, late spring. When can I add the banana peels and should I use other fertilizer as well.

NO it is not too early just put them where the roots will go, not where they actually are.

Three years ago I planted a hybrid tea over a wheel barrow full of apples I picked up in the fall.
Right on top.
For two years I wondered if it was going to survive but this spring it, apparently the apples finally rotted, came up like gang-busters.
If you bury apples, hard ones, you will be surprised how long it takes for them to get mushy underground.
I have buried them in the early fall and next spring they were still crunchy hard.

Hi Melch and RpR: Thanks RpR about NOT burying stuff under the soil, they don't decompose well. I asked the same question in the Rose Forum, "Should I put banana peels and coffee ground on top, in the bottom of the hole, or mixed with the dirt?" Michaelg and Mike_River both said to put banana peels and coffee ground on top, around the drip line.

Kim Rupert, an experienced rosarian and breeder, always advised, "NEVER BURY GARBAGE", they ferment and get sour. It's best to put organics on top, where the sun and the rain helps to speed up the decomposition.

I had a lot of hybrid teas growing on my window since last summer waiting to go in the backyard. These plants were kind of important to me since I raised them from cuttings from florist's roses and I wanted to give them the best start possible.

I was planting them in a place where there had only been grass growing, and although my soil was in good shape, it still needed alot of work. I started adding bags of manure in the early winter along with dozens of banana peels and coffee grounds. I decided to do this in early winter because I know that the manure needs time to decompose into the soil.

I added several weeks worth of coffee grounds gradually and they seemed to serve the purpose of attracting a huge ammount of garden worms to the area which I hear are very beneficial.

The bananas I added once a week and just kind of shoveled them around the dirt and they gradually disappeared over time. When it came time to plant the roses, I added about 3 banana peels to the bottom of each hole that I dug along with some bone meal. So far, they seem to be thriving and I think everything that I added helped to loosen up the soil and make it much more hospitable:)

Maude