If you were to ask several different horticulturalists which fertilizer is best to use with roses, chances are you will get a different answer every time. Generally speaking fertilizers that are high in phosphate and relatively low in nitrogen are good for promoting floral production. I say this with a warning though. Roses love their nitrogen as well. The trick here is to find that balance that promotes both luscious foliar growth (nitrogen helps with this) and abundant floral production. My suggestion would be to go to your local nursery and purchase some fertilizer. It could be a liquid fertilizer, organic or slow release or some combination of the three. My recommendation is to follow the fertilizer use instructions. A rose can recover much more easily from too little fertilizer than they would be able to with too much fertilizer.

As for promoting flowering for your climbing rose, there could be several issues at play. Chances are the climbing rose is either not getting enough sunlight or nutrients (my bet is on the latter). I would be surprised to ever hear that a rose was getting too much sun. Roses love the sun and the more the merrier for the most part (of course there can always be issues with dry soil that will complicate the sun issue, but as long as there are no other limiting factors, give your rose as much sunlight as possible). Many roses are also heavy feeders. They like the nutrients, which means you could potentially be feeding your rose every other week during the growing season. When your roses are dormant, it does little good to feed since the roses will have no place to put those nutrients since they will have no new place to put them, aka new leaves and shoots.

Hey Elizabeth...I actually know a thing or two about roses :)...(My dissertation for my PhD was primarily based on roses) Granted there are thousands upon thousands of different cultivars of roses and for the most part they have different cultivation needs, but they all have similarities. Roses like sun and warmth! This is what they will thrive on. Of course roses can withstand cold (they will drop their leaves and go dormant if it gets too cold), but if given warm temperatures year round they will continue to produce leaves and some cultivars will also produce flowers. As for your climbing rose, some climbing roses will become a large mound of leaves, canes and flowers without any type of support to cling to. If you have enough room, I actually feel this is a good look, but the shrub can get HUGE! I like to compare this look to a shaggy hairdo, as opposed to the clean cut look of a climbing rose trained and pruned to some sort of support. Since I'm not sure which cultivar your climbing rose is, I can't really give you a sense of what it will end up looking like.

Now here comes the monkey wrench in this whole situation. Many plants will also drop their leaves because they have too much water in the soil. You mentioned that the Ficus was sitting above a radiator vent, which leads me to believe that you may already have known that the soil is drying out too quickly. I can foresee a gardener deciding to give lots of water to the plant in an attempt to save the plant from drying out. If this is the case, once again sensor-based irrigation will take this into account as well. I hope this helps you. Let me know if you have any further questions. Cheers...Robby

It's situations like this that time-based irrigation will fail, since the normal irrigation interval has changed due to these different factors. Using sensor-based irrigation goes right to the source. Your EasyBloom will tell you when the soil is too dry and when it is time to water again. Also, since it's winter, you will not have to fertilize your Ficus for a bit, so be sure to use tap water when watering your Ficus.

Hey Margaret...This sounds likes a great time to whip out the ol' EasyBloom and do some monitoring. It sounds like you may have a couple of issues. First off, I assume your Ficus is the Weeping Fig, aka the Benjamin Ficus. This is probably the most common of the ornamental figs. In winter a number of things occur inside a home and with a plant that can cause this. I personally think you hit the nail on the head by suggesting that the radiator vent may have something to do with the leaf drop here. Every winter our indoor plants have to endure drier air because we artificially heat our homes. Of course, I would never suggest that we shouldn't heat our homes (how can one enjoy the beauty of a plant in our homes if we cannot live comfortably in our homes). The dry air that is coming out of that radiator vent is primarily doing two things: reducing the humidity in the air & drying out the soil. Both of these environmental factors can separately cause leaf drop, but together will form a double whammy of detrimental stimuli for your Ficus. Another factor one should consider in this situation is that in winter, your Ficus will actually need less water. Although it may not look like it superficially, your Ficus has slowed down in its growth this winter and as a result will not take up as much water as it would in spring and summer. So, it's your duty to balance the drying effects of your radiator vent and the less moisture needed by your plant this winter.

Hey Liz...This is an excellent idea. In fact we have begun working on this very issue, but unfortunately it is a bit more complicated than one would think. For example a plant that may be poisonous to your dog may have no general effect on people: onion is such a plant. Another example would be rhubarb. The stem-like part of the leaf is the edible part of the leaf. The leaf blades (the top part of the actual leaf...this is what generally people will think of when talking about the rhubarb leaf) are poisonous. I have tried to discuss such issues in the plants' interesting facts. Also, if you look at the plant details page for a specific plant, you will notice that some plants are marked as "All or parts of this plant are poisonous" in the special features section. I appreciate the suggestion, as I think it's a great one to address. Please let us know if you have any other suggestions as it is a pleasure to hear/read all of the great ideas that come from our users. Thanks again....Robby

Hey Aimee...I can't really give you an accurate estimate of when you will see Hoya compacta in the EasyBloom database as we still have some QA left for that particular plant. I don't want to get your hopes up and then have you feel let down when you didn't see your desired plant in the time quoted. By chance do you have any questions that I can assist you with in the meantime?

Hey Rick...I understand where you're coming from. This has happened to me and I assume others as well. I also want to mention that it sounds like you have been listening in on our conversations around here at the EasyBloom offices. Your suggestion has been discussed and several ideas to remedy the battery interface have come across our desks for us to noodle over. I appreciate your feedback and am happy to say this is currently being worked on. Cheers...Robby

Hey Davide...This is something we have definitely discussed in the past of something we would like to do. After months of kicking this idea around the office, we came to the conclusion that we would have to know the geography around every single sensor. You may have a slope with a house on top next to your yard, but the next EasyBloomer may have a completely different geography in their yard. In a sense, we decided that this idea would be extremely complex to completely master. In an effort to make the sensor and website completely straightforward in its use, we decided to put this idea on the back burners for now. I appreciate your feedback, and please keep them coming. We definitely read these posts and are very interested in what our users think. Thanks...Robby