Thank you for your reply and info.

My almost 50 year old tree rose has large blossoms but the stems are so thin,
that the blossoms cannot stand upright. Located in hot valley near Los
Angeles, CA.

Hello Dave,

Lets start from the beginning he do you know what
kind of rose do you have?

No, it came with the house.

Some roses are "nodders",
this meaning that the blooms are bigger than what the
stem can properly hold up.

I am positive that this nodding has occurred gradually and worsened
recently. Blossoms used to stand upright on very adequate diameter
stems.


Any chance of you getting a photo here for us to
take a look at your rose?

I have a digital camera but do not have a web page to place jpg image.
Can you suggest where can I post the picture?



I would suggest that in the feeding department you
may want to simply get a couple of bags of Whitney's
steer manure and some alfalfa pellets from a feed store
-not the one with sugar added but the straight for the
rabbits pellets- and mulch your rose with some nice
spadesful of manure and then a couple of handfuls
of alfalfa.

Ok on the alternate feeding scheme.

If I stop using the BAYER systemic feed, and use Whitney's steer plus
alphalpha, swarms of aphids will again attack this rose. Can you suggest
an alternate method to system feed to control aphids?


Thank you all for your help.

Dave