How to fertilize Tea roses?

All roses are greedy feeders, it's rather difficult to overfeed them but still there are some necessary guidelines.

Never use artifical fertilizers. They are man made chemicals, empty calories destroying our soils quite rapidly. It's important to know that chemical fertilizers destroy mycorrhiza fungus and all the benefits attributed to them. Also they make the soil very salty and they will kill our beneficial microorganisms. 

No, we only use organic fertilizers originating directly from nature. They stimulate the life in our top soil, the humus layer. 

When you buy organic fertilizer is important to take a look at the package itself. It has to be clearly visible it's organic. Once you see that it's important to look for the NPK levels. NPK stands for Nitrogen, Phosphor and Potassium (Kalium).

Nitrogen for growth, Phosphor for a healthy and big root system and Potassium gives our roses a good resistance against diseases. Often the NPK on rose fertilizer is followed by another element, Magnesium. Magnesium is responsible for big, many, healthy flowers.

It's easy to check if the fertilizer you wanna buy is really organic. Don't just believe it because it says so on the plastic package. No, just look at the NPK levels, they always have to be lower than 10, especially the Nitrogen. So when the NPK for example reads: 6 - 8 - 7 it really is organic and safe to use. You won't be able to burn your roses with these levels even if you give your roses the triple amount of fertilizer. Organic fertilizer slowly releases the elements into the soil without the risk of burning the roots. Don't worry if the amount of Magnesium is higher than 10. Magnesium doesn't burn roots, Nitrogen does when it comes in high amounts. You can easily compare the organic fertilizer with a chemical one in your garden center. Immediately you will notice that the NPK levels on the chemical fertilizer are always higher than 10, especially the Nitrogen. You don't want that. It's poison for the soil and it can burn our roots very quickly.

So now you have the right fertilizer it's good to know when to apply it. We start in early spring which is March in the Northern hemisphere. A good handful of granulated organic fertilizer is spread in a circle around the roots of each rose. We repeat this each month till August so in September we stop giving fertilizer. Why? Because we want to give our roses the opportunity to stop growing so the new wood of summer can get hard enough to withstand frost in late fall and winter. The wood needs to ripen. If we keep giving fertilizer the roses still think it's summer and they'll keep making new shoots. Shoots this late won't get the time to become cold resistant enough and it increases the chances of frost damage. So that's why we stop giving food in September. 

We also give a handful of volcanic rock dust in March. Just spread the powder onto your soil and work it in a bit. 

IMPORTANT: Fertilizer needs water to dissolve and to be transported to the root system so if it doesn't rain when you apply the fertilizer it's mandatory to give plenty of water. Always keep that in mind. If it doesn't rain your fertilizer will be useless.

An organic rose fertilizer always has low NPK levels. In this case 4-8-4

Another example of a good organic fertilizer with NPK 5-6-3

Chemical fertilizer always has a very high NPK. In this case 20-20-20. Never buy a fertilizer with N(nitrogen) higher than 9. It can burn roots and makes your soil sick