Using Epsom salt on your roses has long been a best friend and an excellent supplement for rose growers! These roses are sometimes referred to as “salt roses.”
While blooming, rose bushes can suffer from a lack of magnesium, causing a magnesium deficiency. Using Epsom salts like this as a fertilizer supplement can solve the problem.
Learn how the master gardener grows happy, healthy, and beautiful flowers on roses by using simple, inexpensive Epsom salts.
The Benefits Of Epsom Salts On Roses
Before learning about its benefits, let’s discuss where Epsom salts were discovered.
Epsom salt was first discovered accidentally in the early 1600s in Epsom, England, hence its namesake.
The chemical makeup of Epsom salts is simple. It is hydrated magnesium sulfate. It’s a water-soluble natural mineral containing magnesium, sulfur, and oxygen.
Its main ingredient, magnesium sulfate, is a soil additive that takes in essential nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus, enhances the soil’s capability, and encourages healthy plant life.
When diluted with water, all kinds of plants can take up the magnesium quickly and benefit from it greatly by giving it a boost.
Here are just a few of the ways magnesium sulfate benefits plants in your rose garden:
- Makes more flavorful tomatoes, vegetables, and fruits!
- Supports efficient nutrient uptake
- Increases blooms & fruit
- Speeds plant growth
- Deters pests like snails and slugs
- Improves seed germination and chlorophyll production
- Promotes photosynthesis
Other plants that benefit from using Epsom salts include tomatoes and peppers.
While Epsom salts are beneficial, a soil test before using them is always a good idea.
Use Epsom salt as a supplement for any lack of magnesium which helps increase fruiting, flowering, and boosting plant growth.
Is Epsom Salt Good For Roses?
Serious Rose enthusiasts use Epsom salts to help strengthen their plants. Using Epsom salt helps “build” lush, dark green foliage as a gorgeous backdrop to dazzling, bright, abundant blooms.
The added magnesium levels help strengthen cell walls and increase chlorophyll production in the plant for strength and deep, rich color.
Supplementing with Epsom salt on roses will “assist” the slow-release fertilizer and help plants produce more bottom breaks (canes originating at the base of the plant) for dense, lush foliage, and increase blossom size and quantity, it’s best when planting to start roses out with a dose of Epsom salts.
Apply Epsom salt as soon as you see new growth and again when they begin to bloom. Follow these instructions for the right application at the right time.
However, remember that the use of Epsom salt cannot provide other key nutrients like nitrogen and potassium.
Also, ensure not to apply excess magnesium because it can do more harm than good to your plant.
How And When To Appy Epsom Salt To Roses
Incorporating Epsom Salt And Roses Into The Soil
Broadcast Epsom salt-like grass seed and powdered eggshells at a rate of about a cup per 100 hundred square feet. Work it into the garden soil very well before planting.
Using Epsom Salt For Roses Flowers As A Fertilizer When Planting
Before planting bushes like knockout roses, (including Double Knock Out Roses), give the roots a nice soak in a gallon of lukewarm water with a mix of 1/2 cup of Epsom salts.
When planting new bushes, put one tablespoon of Epsom salt at the bottom of the hole. Cover it over with dirt, then place the plant on top.
Adding Epsom Salt To Established Plants
How much Epsom salt do you use on roses?
For established roses, add a top dressing to the soil. Sprinkle approximately one tablespoon of Epsom salt on roses per one foot of plant height around the plant.
Water in thoroughly. You can apply top dressing once a month through the entire growing season.
Related: 6 Reasons Your Rose Leaves Are Turning Yellow
Using Epsom Salt As A Foliar Spray Application
I’m not a fan of applying any more spray than necessary to roses foliage due to potential powdery mildew. So use it with caution.
Remember that Epsom salt solutions can cause leaf scorch when applied directly to plant leaves.
However, generally speaking, I like liquid fertilizer applications. They work best in all forms of application.
To apply a foliar spray, add one tablespoon of Epsom salt to a gallon of water for each foot of bush height.
Spray the foliage as soon as the leaves begin to open in springtime and once again when your roses start flowering.
Epsom salts have been a real boon to the master gardener for decades, particularly rosarians. It provides tremendous benefits to houseplants and soil, is safe (when used at the right rate), and amazingly affordable.
It is an all-natural “rose” fertilizer that home gardeners of every kind swear by, even though their claims have never been scientifically proven.
More info on Rose Fertilizer and Fertilizing Roses with Bone Meal
You don’t need to worry about overdoing it with Epsom salts because it is pH neutral.
Generally speaking, you can count on Epsom salt roses as a quick and easy fix to a wide variety of garden problems, especially magnesium deficiency, and a special tonic for your roses.
If you notice yellow leaves and stunted growth, then it’s likely time to use Epsom salt!