Question
I have a beautiful rose garden with over 20 rose bushes. Unfortunately I have only had five roses bloom the entire summer. We have had a nice summer in NJ and in passed years I had hundreds of roses. I have done everything the same as in past years except for placing pine straw throughout the garden to keep the weeds down. Could this be causing my rose drought??  We really need some help.


Answer
If roses have bloomed in other years and then don't bloom this year, it is usually because the flower buds got frozen by a late frost or even in a very cold winter. Pine straw is very acid but if that was effecting the roses, then it would have shown up in the colour of the leaves. Another reason healthy roses don't bloom is often because there is too high a content of nitrogen in the fertilizer. When this high nitrogenm is used monthly, it activates the rose to produce green growth and it does so at the expense of making flowers. The last reason could be that some thing or some insect is literally eating the rose buds. Some birds will eat them plus rabbits, deer and beetles. Certain weather conditions tend to produce what is called blind shoots which means there is no flower buds on the ends. High heat tends to put the roses into stress and they just sit there and don't do any growth until the weather returns to normal. Then the roots will activate again. If these are the reason then the rose bushes will return to normal and bloom well in the fall for you.
Is there any sign of buds? Next door neigbor used a spray? Anything done differently this year? It is not rare but it is unusual, that roses will not bloom. I have got a lot of questions this year regarding roses that bloomed well in other years but did nothing this year.