Apart from the caffeine kick you get from your daily cup of coffee, your used coffee grounds can have numerous other benefits you didn’t even realize. One of which is gardening, of all things. And in the same breath, specifically your roses. Your leftover coffee grounds in your percolator might just be your answer to healthier, blossoming roses in your garden.
Using coffee grounds on roses is both beneficial to the roses and an eco-friendly way to keep the waste from landfills. You can use ground coffee as a fertilizer, mix it into the soil, or as a mulch to protect the top layer of the ground. However, using too much can be harmful to your roses.
Using recycled ground coffee on your rose bushes is not as easy as it sounds. You will require some diligent investigation and research before you go about dumping your leftover coffee grounds in your garden.
Why Is Coffee Grounds Good For Your Roses?
Your used coffee grounds are rich in nutrients like nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous, which aid your rose bushes in producing solid stems and healthy green growth. Roses bloom in the ground, which is slightly acidic. It adds acidity to an overly alkaline or neutral earth, ideal for roses to flourish.
Using coffee grounds on your roses in moderation aids the health of the roses and, in some cases, deters pests and small critters from ravaging your flowers. It can also be helpful as a light mulch over your topsoil to hinder the germination of weeds and other seedlings.
Do Coffee Grounds Keep Away Pests?
Besides the coffee grounds benefiting the growth of the roses, they can also help scare away numerous insects like bees, fleas, ants, mosquitoes, and snails. The caffeine content in the recycled coffee grounds is very little but still potent enough, preventing bugs from coming too close to your roses.
Not only does it chase away small critters trying to eat your rose plants, but it also prevents small animals from coming too close to your rose bushes. The robust coffee smell from the coffee grounds mixed into the base keeps them at a distance. It will even stop cats from using your rose garden as a litter box.
You can even burn coffee in a small dish near the roses to prevent creatures from disturbing your plants. The smell of roasting coffee grounds mimics a forest fire and drives them away.
What Insects Love Coffee Grounds?
Earthworms love to eat coffee grounds. They ingest the coffee grounds and excrete vermicastings which enriches the earth. Even though many small insects rush away from the scent of the coffee grounds, this creature adores ground coffee. Mixing ground coffee in your soil will attract more worms, and having them around has numerous perks.
They also move through your soil as they eat through and aerate the ground for water to reach all the roots. The worms using the coffee grounds as a food source ultimately improve the soil structure’s aggregation for improved drainage.
What Does Coffee Grounds Do To Your Soil?
Due to the acidity of used coffee grounds, adding it to your soil will inadvertently lower the pH balance. If your roses refuse to grow, it might be because the soil is too alkaline. Roses flourish in soil with a pH balance of between 5.5 and 6.5. Used coffee grounds have a baseline of nearly neutral, between 6.5 and 6.8.
Adding coffee grounds to your garden soil can lower the pH balance to a more acceptable level for your roses. Adding too much, though, will tip the scale again and make the ground too acidic for the roses to bloom.
How Often Can You Use Coffee Grounds On Your Roses?
As with many things, there is always a thin line between enough and too much. If you choose to fertilize your roses with coffee grounds, you should aim for the beginning of the growing season. Shortly after winter, around April and May, when your plants are blooming after their winter rest, they desperately need additional nutrition.
Can You Use Fresh Coffee Grounds On Your Roses?
Using fresh coffee grounds on your rose bushes is never a good idea. Even after ground coffee has steeped and brewed cups of coffee, a certain amount of caffeine remains in the recycled grounds, as well as a surplus of nitrogen that the rose plants absorb. Ground coffee can be diluted and used as an added fertilizer in small amounts, but fresh coffee grounds are still too potent for this application.
If you prefer tea over coffee and do not ordinarily accumulate used ground coffee, you will do more harm to your roses by using fresh coffee grounds. However, for this very reason, your local coffeehouse usually has used coffee available for avid gardeners. If they don’t, you might be able to persuade them to give it to you instead of having it end up in landfills.
What Are The Pros And Cons Of Reusing Your Recycled Coffee Grounds?
Ground coffee on your rose bushes should be cautiously used as it’s not always ideal. You should pay attention to certain limitations, as too large quantities will harm your roses.
| PROS | CONS |
| · Reusing your coffee grounds on your roses will help you to reduce your waste. Your used coffee would have ended up in a landfill or the garbage disposal, but you repurpose it to aid your garden. | · Unfortunately, it is not a good idea to allow your dog to eat it due to the caffeine in coffee grounds.
Dogs naturally tend to gulf-up anything they perceive as smelling good, but coffee grounds can be toxic to dogs.
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| · You feed the earthworms by mixing your used coffee grounds into your soil.
They are a health benefit to the earth as they use the coffee grounds as a food source, and in turn, produce nutrient-rich waste and help aerate the soil.
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· Using too much ground coffee in your garden can change the soil’s pH balance. Roses prefer ground that is a little lower than neutral.
However, if your rose bed is already acidic, using coffee grounds will increase the acidity and stunt the growth of your roses.
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| · The coffee grounds are coarse in texture and allow the soil to properly drain water and nutrients to the roots of the plants.
Just be sure to mix the ground well when adding coffee grounds. |
· Another deficit of too many coffee grounds is that it might inhibit the germination of seedlings or young plants.
Caffeine stunts the growth of seeds or suppresses the development of their roots. Therefore, do not use coffee grounds on your roses when they are too young.
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| · Ground coffee mixed into the earth also assist the ground in retaining moisture and enhances the health of your roses. | · Even though using coffee grounds kills off some harmful bacteria in ground soil, it might also be too strong for the good bacteria to survive.
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| · As coffee grounds are a green composting material, it assists in the decomposition of organic materials by producing heat and releasing nitrogen.
The nitrogen, in turn, advances the growth of microorganisms in the soil and assures a healthy environment for your roses.
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· You can also use ground coffee as a mulch on the top to protect the soil from drying out and from weeds to sprout.
However, if you use too much, it sticks together and forms a thick barrier that prevents water drainage or sun. It’s best to sprinkle the coffee grounds sparingly over the top layer of soil. |
| · When added to your soil, coffee grounds serve as a slow-release fertilizer, discharging its nutrients over time to benefit your roses.
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| · By sprinkling coffee grounds around the garden bed or in circle formations a little way from the stem of your roses, you might be able to keep cats and certain insects away.
Slugs and ants are also not fond of ground coffee and generally steer clear.
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| · Coffee grounds can also aid the soil by fighting destructive diseases and fungi from developing.
Decomposing coffee grounds produce bacterial and fungal species that benefit your flowerbed in this way. |
What Are The Uses Of Coffee Grounds On Your Roses?
Coffee grounds are a natural slow-releasing fertilizer for your roses when used correctly. Mix the grounds with water and let it rest for a day before spraying it on the soil. This will release the nutrients slowly to the roots for healthy growth.
The coffee grounds can be mixed into the soil at the beginning of spring. It aids in fighting off insects and damaging bacteria, acts as a composting agent, and aerates the ground for proper water drainage.
Ground coffee is also a suitable replacement for mulch. Used lightly, it can be a protective covering for the top layer of the soil.
How To Make Ground Coffee Fertilizer?
A few methods are floating around for making your own fertilizer using coffee grounds.
Combine four-six tablespoons of ground coffee for an innovative recipe with one teaspoon of cinnamon and one cup of club soda. Stir this mixture well and pour it over the ground around your roses every two weeks.
The easiest way to create your homemade coffee fertilizer is to mix about two cups of coffee grounds with two gallons of cold water in a watering can. You can allow it to steep for a day before pouring it around the soil of your rose beds.
If you prefer to mix it into your soil, add two cups of coffee grounds with the same amount of grass clippings before mixing it into the earth around the roses. The coffee will produce heat and allow for the composting process to begin. The roots will absorb the nutrients slowly released by the compost every time you water the rose garden.
Can You Use Ground Coffee In Your Composting?
It is a great idea to add ground coffee to your compost bin. Coffee is vibrant with all kinds of nutrients and bacteria to assist in the decomposition of your compost. Every one-part coffee should be mixed with one-part leaves or grass clippings to act as a carbon source.
However, too much coffee grounds might produce too much acidity, and it’s advisable not to use more than 15 – 20 % grounds compared to the total compost heap.
How Much Ground Coffee Should You Use On Your Roses?
Even if ground coffee has been used to make several cups, the nitrogen and caffeine content in the coffee grounds are still very potent and should be used in small quantities. Instead, stick to a ratio of one cup of coffee for every gallon of water. Or one cup of ground coffee per rose bush. Stick to a twenty-five percent ratio when adding ground coffee to your soil.
Adding too much coffee will prevent your roses from growing, and it will be detrimental to the quality of your soil. It will reduce the quality of your roses and halt any germination of new buds.
If you want to fertilize your roses with a homemade ground coffee mixture, you should not exceed seven to ten days in a row. The coffee increases the acidic nature of the soil and needs to be used sparingly. Mixing ground coffee into your ground around the roses should not surpass more than once a month during the growing season.
What Should You Avoid When Using Coffee Grounds On Your Roses?
You should avoid using too much when mixing coffee grounds into your soil. Too much coffee will increase the nitrogen and acidity content of the earth, and either burn or even kill the roots. One cup of used coffee is enough to benefit the ground, and the rose bush.
Another thing to avoid is to use too thick a layer of coffee grounds as mulch. If the coffee layer is too dense, it will not allow any water circulation in the soil and negatively impact the health of your roses.
Other Plants To Benefit From Your Coffee Grounds
Even if you’re not a fiery rose gardener, other plants have proven to benefit from adding coffee grounds to their soil. These plants usually use acid-rich environments like blueberries, rhododendrons, azaleas, hydrangeas, and camellia. The high acid content and nitrogen-rich soil also promote the growth of vegetables like spinach, lettuce, mustard greens, and arugula.
However, not all plants enjoy the enhancement of ground coffee in their soil. These are greens like asparagus fern, Italian ryegrass, geranium, and Chinese mustard. The plants are generally vegetation that prefers a more alkaline balanced soil. In these cases, ground coffee will actually stop the plants from growing or, in some cases, kill them.
In almost every event, it’s best to have your soil tested adequately before adding anything to your soil.
Conclusion
Who knew that the leftover grounds could be so helpful beyond drinking your coffee? For one, it makes a fabulous addition to your roses by either mixing it with the soil or using it as a top mulch. But be careful of how much you use.
Ground coffee’s acidic nature might be more harmful than good if used too much. Have your soil tested before attempting to add coffee grounds. Why not save your coffee grounds from the bin or the garbage disposal, and consider this a much more eco-friendly way to protect the environment?
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