Question
I have 36 roses in my front flower bed.  All of them look fairly good except one cupcake and six sexy rexy's.  They are not blooming enough.  The cupcake is a tree and the six sexy rexy bushes are small and spindly like miniature roses even though they are not.   How can I get the sexy rexy to be what they should be?  Should I use chicken,cow or steer manure right now and more next March?    Then use fish emulsion and other fertilizers?  Please give me help.  I spent $17. on each rosebush.
Thanks
Karen  

Answer
Anyone who can plant, grow and flower 3 dozen Roses knows what they're doing in a Rose garden, Karen.

No Flowers? Often this is a sunlight problem.  In your case, I think we agree we can rule out sunlight - you would not make that mistake.

Sometimes the problem is misguided pruning.  With an experienced gardener, that too is unlikely. Scratch bad pruning job.

For reasons I don't yet understand, certain vigorous Roses produce lush growth and few flowers.  "Climbing Peace" is notorious for disappointing flower shows.  It is conceivable that your Sexy and Cupcake are two of these, unless of course there are others of these cultivars that are doing well.  The only way to get fickle Roses to flower is to shut off the fish emulsion and other high Nitrogen fertilizers and pump up the Phosphorous.

I don't know how familiar you are with the creepy little Rose Midge (Disineura rhodophaga).  Check your nonblooming and underblooming specimens for tiny white (and eventually orange) Midge grubs.  They devour tender new growth and sometimes all the buds as well.  There go the blooms.  The plant shows all the outward signs of appearing healthy, yet it may never bloom while under Midge attack. These tiny, ruddy-brown Midge flies lay eggs inside the sepals at the base of a rosebud, or next to new shoots.  The creepy crawlers hatch, then feast on Rose petals, buds, shoots and leaves.  Buds deform, blast and eventually drop off the plant.  With your experience, I think you probably would have seen alien intruders in your Rose garden by now.  But I have to mention it, just in case - check for bugs.  You can look over the Rose petals and sepals closely with a magnifying glass to see if you detect any larvae.

Your suggestion of mulching with compost or rotted manure can have a remarkable effect on a group of Roses.  These both contribute a rich, good tilth for the soil, improve drainage and enhance the balance of nutrients. Roses do need a lot more Nitrogen than they usually get, even with fertilizers labelled specifically for Roses - but you probably know that! Manure is something that is usually applied in the autumn, even if it has been aged.

What's more, to quote the American Rose Society: "Too much Nitrogen will lead to the plant preferring leaf growth to bloom growth."  This is generally the case with all perennials and flowering shrubs.  It's tricky with Roses.  Because they do need a lot of leaves to build up the resources for those intense flowers.

Hard to believe - but is it possible you overdid the N when you mixed in the manure -- depending on how much you added -- resulting in exceptional foliage now and fewer blooms?

To get my Tea Roses off with a bang, I put slow-release
high-Phosphorous fertilizer on the ground just as it's beginning to thaw.  Then they get lots of balanced Rose Food including fish emulsion and aged manure for the rest of the season.

Chicken manure is a wonderful thing to be able to access, by the way.  I am green with envy.  Just make sure everything is aged.  You didn't mention Bone Meal - the source of all Phosphorous in the organic garden.  If you throw in a little superphosphate now (take it easy, you don't want to burn any of those roots), and a lot of Bone Meal, you will have short term and long term boosts for Phosphorous - great for roots, but a supercharger for blossoms.  You deserve a last flush of Rose blooms before it gets cold, and I think you are going to have to remember that flowers and Phosphorous go together like tea and sugar.  Why your other Roses are responding differently is, well, one of those things we may never understand.  But his is where experience comes in.  You are getting your experiences this summer, aren't you?

"Cupcake", by the way, your miniature grown as a Rose Standard, was an achiever in enough small gardens to be nominated, then accepted into the ARS's "Miniature Rose Hall of Fame".  It is not foolproof, but maybe too much of a good thing is what went wrong.  All Roses are not created equal. Perhaps in your neck of the woods, "Cupcake" and/or "Sexy Rexy" is not cooperative.

I have to apologize for the awful time it is taking for me to put this answer together, Karen.  There are brownouts all over the place here and I am constantly saving things in draft because I may lose them any second with another zap of the computer rebooting itself or stopping altogether.  I am sorry it has taken so long - now let me click the button before the lights fade again.  I may never get thru all these answers.  I will check into the Sexy Rexy and Cupcake matter further and let you know when I get some feedback from our Rosarians around here about their finickiness.  But take it easy with the Nitrogen on those, and give them some juicy Phosphorous so they can look pretty before the autumn freezes.