After a warm Perth summer, autumn is recovery time for your roses. The worst of the heat starts to ease, nights get a little cooler, and your plants finally have a chance to catch their breath. For many rose gardens, this is when tired, sun‑stressed bushes begin to put out fresh, healthy growth again.
In autumn, your main goal is to help roses rebuild their strength. That means checking soil moisture, topping up mulch, and making sure each plant has enough water to grow new roots and foliage without sitting in soggy ground. Light feeding with a balanced rose fertiliser can support this new growth, as long as you avoid overdoing it and burning stressed roots. A gentle tidy-up prune to remove dead, burnt or weak stems will also help the plant focus on strong shoots.
It’s also a great time to walk through your garden and take stock. Notice which roses coped well with summer, which struggled, and where shade, airflow or soil improvement might help next year. This is the time of year that we like to assess each plant, clean up any damage from summer and set the garden up for a strong winter and spring. If you feel your roses are not bouncing back after summer, please talk to me and I will try and help identify what’s holding them back and plan the right autumn care for your garden.
John Kelly