- Why roses do not tolerate bark mulch
- Which you can use to mulch roses instead
- Keep roses healthy - activate soil life
As experience shows, roses stand better in open ground. If you cover a bed with bark mulch, save the ground around the rose. So you can apply fertilizer, and hoeing and loosening the soil is not made more difficult. However, it is better not to use bark mulch, because roses do not tolerate bark mulch particularly well.
Roses don't particularly like bark mulch
Why roses do not tolerate bark mulch
Many hobby gardeners use mulch in their beds to suppress weeds and reduce the time weeding. This effect occurs because mulch (€239.00) impedes the aeration (i.e. the supply of oxygen) to the soil. Roses, however, depend on very good soil aeration, if only because the bacteria living in the soil are aerobic. This means they need oxygen to decompose fertilizer, humus or compost. If this is missing, the roses can no longer absorb the nutrients they need.
Fungal diseases are the result of mulching
Roses that are insufficiently supplied with nutrients are weakened, grow less, flower less and are also more susceptible to attack by pests and/or various pathogens, primarily fungi. On roses growing in mulched soil, blackspot is very common, a disease caused by a harmful fungus, primarily affecting the rose petals.
Which you can use to mulch roses instead
However, you don't have to do without mulching entirely. Instead of bark mulch, it is better to spread mature compost or rose soil in late autumn. It is quite sufficient to keep the mulch layer about four centimeters thick. Later, this mulch can easily be worked in, and it also supplies the rose with additional nutrients.
Keep roses healthy - activate soil life
A soil activator from the specialist trade improves the metabolism of the rose. The pH value also levels off at an optimal level for roses. Choose a product made from natural raw materials that contains important trace elements and micronutrients. Thoroughly work the soil activator into the soil; As a result, the soil structure is improved, as is the absorption and utilization of nutrients. Incidentally, coffee grounds act as a natural (and completely free) activator - a wonderful fertilizer not only for roses!
tips
But if you don't want to do without mulch, pine bark is the better option.