How to Feed Rose Bushes

The key to having beautiful rose bushes is fertilizer. Feeding your roses a nutrient-rich fertilizer will encourage impressive, large blooms and attractive, healthy leaves and stems. While you can buy commercial fertilizer, you can easily make your own at home with just a few ingredients. Fertilize your roses in the winter, when the plants are dormant. This fertilizer recipe will make enough to feed one rose bush, so make as many batches as you need.

1 cup cottonseed meal
1 cup superphosphate
1/2 cup Epsom salts
1/2 cup blood meal
1/2 cup fish meal
Garden hose
Rake

Instructions

- 1
  Mix 1 cup cottonseed meal, 1 cup superphosphate, 1/2 cup Epsom salts, 1/2 cup blood meal and 1/2 cup fish meal, and set aside. You can buy cottonseed meal and superphosphate at any hardware or garden store. Blood meal (made of blood worms) and fish meal can be found in the aquarium department of pet stores.
- 2
  Thoroughly water the rose bush with a garden hose.
- 3
  Apply the fertilizer around the perimeter of the rose bush.
- 4
  Rake the fertilizer gently to mix it with the top layer of the soil.
- 5
  Water the rose bush again, and wait for big, beautiful flowers in the spring.

How to Cut Back Hybrid Tea Roses

How to Keep Your Knock Out Roses Looking Great

Rose Garden