Question
I do not know the name of the rose bush. It is a standard red rose bush.  We have had it for about 5 years.  Up until last year, it bloomed lots of roses.  Then last year it stopped blooming. It grows alot of foliage.  There are 3 other rose bushes around it, all different colors, and they are blooming fine.  What could cause this one to stop?  There is no bugs, damage, or anything else showing on the plant.  I heard that a rose bush only blooms for a certain amount of years, and then stops?  Is this true?  What should I do?

Answer
My dear Margaret, who in the world told you that a Rose has a life expectance and stops blooming?  These Rose bushes live forever.  You can hand these down to your children, your nieces and nephews, and they will sending off new blossoms long after you and I are fertilizing that great garden in the sky...

I am so glad to hear that your other Rose bushes are doing well.  These sound like you might have Grandifloras or Floribundas.  A Tea Rose could be a royal headache and without a lot of work it would almost certainly not be "fine".

How are your Roses arranged in your plot?  Are they all getting the same amount of sun, morning to sunset?

Has this particular Rose bush bloomed at all this year, in the spring perhaps?

Sometimes, Roses have "flushes" of blooming, they need to take a rest.  If you do not have any problems, you are lucky to have a cultivar that is "resistant" to all the bad things most other Roses get like children get chicken pox, measles and mumps.

If you really do have a lot of leaves on this particular Rose bush, you might consider giving it a fertilizer with special vitamins for flowers.  How can you tell that?  Check the fertilizer label.  All fertilizer comes with three numbers for N-P-K, it might say 12-24-6 for instance.  You want ANY FERTILIZER WITH THE HIGHEST NUMBER IN THE MIDDLE.  You DO NOT want something that is 5-0-2.  The zero is the SMALLEST number.  You DO NOT want a fertilizer that is 20-20-20.  All the numbers are the same.  You want a fertilizer that is like 5-10-5.  See how the 10 is the biggest number?  That's the vitamins for flowers!  That fertilizer will do the most good for giving your languishing Rose bush the energy it might need to bloom again.

Are you really sure there is nothing else wrong with the leaves?

Are they all green?  Or are any of them yellow or speckled?

Don't you have any Japanese Beetles or Brown Beetles?  That is truly amazing because right now the Japanese Beetles are invading gardens everywhere with their hungry stomachs and leaf-loving teeth, taking big chunks out of leaves from Long Island to San Francisco.  You must have some extremely green thumbs not to have them at your house.

I hope I was clear about the lesson in how to read a fertilizer label.  If you would like me to explain further, I am happy to do that.  Please look again this weekend at your Rose leaves and see if there is any sign of a bud on the one that is sulking.  Thank you very much for writing, Let's talk again soon,