Roses, with their quintessential beauty and heady perfumes, are one of the great delights of summer. But roses are greedy plants and to guarantee they will be at their finest this summer it’s important to give them the nutrients they need.

As new growth appears, give them an ample feed. This will make them healthier, enabling them to ward off disease, and to flower magnificently.

At Nymans we take great pride in keeping our Rose Garden in good condition and it receives a liberal mulching with well-rotted manure every spring. We maintain our rose garden using organic principles, treating our roses to a liquid feed every four weeks from first leaf burst until September. We use a special liquid compost tea that we brew in the nursery, derived from steeping compost in water, with a few natural additives thrown in. The resulting solution is applied to the base of our roses and helps to replenish beneficial micro-organisms in the soil. Nymans is having a nursery open day on April 23 (from 1pm to 2.30pm) if you’d like to sneak a peek at our compost tea machine.

If you don’t have a compost tea maker at home, a sprinkle of rose fertiliser in April will give them the extra boost they need. If you have repeat flowering roses, feed again after the first flush of flowers.

It’s not just roses that can be mulched at this time of year. Adding generous forkfuls of organic matter does wonders for any garden, improving structure and adding nutrients. Mulching helps the soil retain moisture, resulting in less need for watering, prevents weeds from growing and protects the plants’ roots in winter.

With the excitement of sunny days and bountiful blooms it’s easy to forget about the dreaded weeds. Now that everything else is growing, unfortunately they are too. It’s amazing what a difference a few minutes with a trusty hoe or fork can make to your flower beds, so get rid of the worst of the weeds before they seed, giving you less work this summer.