There is still time to give your roses their winter dressing.
A small handful of sulphate of potash around the roots
and then prick it in will do the trick.
It will not be very long before the flowering buds will be
formed in embryo on the plant including their number, colour, and
number of petals per blossom, so they need the food now.
Without a winter dressing you will not get the best from
your roses,and it will be no use feeding them in the summer
for a better display.These things were decided months earlier
than that.So for a good show this year go for it now.

A common rose pest is blackspot which can spoil the appeal
of an otherwise beauiful rose.
Blackspot is a virus which lives in the soil and spraying with
some poisonous chemical in the summer is a waste of time
as well as a health hazard.(Some say it's a fungus).
A good organic safeguard is garlic. Yes garlic! It pops up
everywhere, doesn't it? It will keep the virus/fungus down and
reduce or possibly eliminate the infection.
Simply get a couple of cloves from the kitchen and plant
around the roots. You can leave it there year on year if
you like, simply thinning out when there is too much.
Plant them now.

Here's a couple of piccies if you'd like to see them.
One is Rosa Geoff Hamilton taken last summer,
The other is, well, just a leek, but my Annie does
a wicked leek and potato soup that sticks to the
ribs so on 17 Dec once the rain stopped I was out digging.

Have a Good Year,everyone!

Yours in gardening,
Sam