The Best Mulch for Rosebushes in Central Alabama

Growing Season

• Roses begin new growth in spring, grow and bloom until fall, then go dormant for winter. Maintain a light mulch layer from spring until fall, and increase the layer for fall and winter protection. In Central Alabama, where temperatures rarely drop below freezing, protect roses in winter with only mulch and pruning.

Spring Feedings

• Start the rose-growing season with hearty spring feedings. Begin in the second or third week of March, when last frost falls in Central Alabama. Turn 3 inches of organic compost into the top layer of soil around each rosebush to warm and nourish the soil. Give each bush bone meal or rose fertilizer, per manufacturer directions, to encourage new growth.

Mulch

• According to the Santa Clarita Valley Rose Society, mulch performs a range of important summertime services. It amends soil with more nutrition, controls weeds, preserves soil moisture and controls diseases and insects. The Society recommends commercial mulch, shredded newspaper, aged sawdust, dead grass clippings, compost, chopped leaves, rotted manure and hay as rose mulch. All-America Rose Selections adds wood chips, shredded bark, cottonseed, cocoa hulls and peat nuggets as possible mulches, and recommends maintaining 2 to 4 inches of mulch around rosebushes during spring and summer.

Fall and Winter Mulch

• Increase your mulch layer in early November in this region, after a hard frost. All-America Rose Selections advises pruning rosebushes to 24 inches at this time to encourage dormancy, and piling 8 to 12 inches of soil, compost or mulch over the bases of the bushes. Maintain this layer through winter to keep each rosebush's roots alive and healthy through cold weather.