Have you been suffering through these mid summer days of high temperatures and humidity? Well, so have your roses. To cool off, you came inside, took a shower and rested. Your roses would have liked to have been "shaded" from the intense rays of the sun during those afternoon periods of greatest heat.

Look around your property. Maybe there's a better location for your roses that offers afternoon shade from a building, fence or some evergreen shrubs.

Washing through the plants with a spray of water during these days of extreme heat not only cools and refreshes the plant, but wards off spider mite and cleans the leaves, allowing them to do a more effective job of photosynthesis. This will not cause the blackspot disease unless the foliage stays wet for 8 hours or more.

When daytime temperatures are in the 90's with high humidity, and the roses are in full sun for periods longer than 8 hours and nighttime temperatures hardly go below 80 degrees F., your plants are under STRESS! As a result, there is little new growth; blooms are small with fewer petals and the color is "washed out". They last but a day or so. Also, because these plants are under stress, spray materials are ineffective and together with the high humidity blackspot takes hold. Losing the productive function
of the leaves causes the plant to appear dormant. Your anticipated lovely fall blooms will be minimal.

This scenario suggests that "full sun" all day is not what roses like in our Kentucky climate. Providing shade next season, as suggested in my first paragraph, so that the plants receive only 6 to 8 hours of sun will go a long way towards eliminating the problems of stress.

But what should you do now about rose plants with mostly bare stems in order to bring them out of their lethargy! It's really simple...remember, "Pruning Creates Vigor". That's right, if you remove all twiggy stems (those smaller than a pencil) and cut to the ground all others that have little or no leaves, you have upset the plant's balance between roots and the growth above. Add some fertilizer and new growth will begin with healthy, purplish green leaves that will use the sun's rays to energize your plants for fall blooms that are so rewarding. In our part of the country after mid-August, unless you are growing roses in a very protected area, do not cut rose blooms with long stems if you want those stems to repeat bloom again this fall.

When removing a spent bloom or cutting to a 3 or 5 leaf-leaflet after mid-August and into September, there is usually not sufficient time to repeat bloom if the thickness of the stem that you cut down to is larger than a pencil. The rule of pruning is "the thinner the remaining stem, the quicker the repeat bloom." I'd rather have some blooms on short/thin stems in October and November than none at all. Early August is the last time to feed your roses with a dry fertilizer, as the nitrogen release may continue late in the fall, making the rose plants soft and subject to severe winter damage. You may however, continue to use a liquid fertilizer regularly through September that will yield larger, long-lasting blooms of intense color. A low nitrogen type, one in which the first number is small, such as Monty's Joy Juice 2-15-15 will give the desired results.

The cool nights and warm days that begin in August and continue through September make our roses increasingly susceptible to blackspot and mildew diseases. If you have not been spraying a systemic fungicide as regularly as the label indicates, it will take two sprayings to get sufficient material absorbed by the leaves of the plant to give needed protection from these diseases. It can prove helpful for you to spray twice within four days to prevent disease and then continue as the label states. The really best time of year for growing roses in Kentucky and enjoying them is coming up in September. Hang in there; don't give up now for the best is yet to come.