CLIPPINGS: growing beautiful bougainvillea

1 If your cut roses don’t last as well as florist’s blooms, your bushes may need better feeding. Flowers on starved plants don’t last as long, so treat with “rose food” scattered over mulch. 2 Got possum problems? Try a “possum collar”. Cut a small hole in the centre of a plastic bin lid, then cut a slit from the outer edge to the hole. Slip over the stem of your rose bush. The possums can’t get over it and hopefully, in a few weeks, they’ll have found another treat and you can remove the “collar”. 3 Keep roses blooming into winter by feeding and watering well now; prune back dead blooms by 30cm to encourage new shoots; and add a layer of mulch to keep summer’s warmth in the soil. Lucerne, well-rotted animal manures and pea straw are great mulches, and break down to condition the soil.