Cultivating Beautiful Roses

You have a garden full of neatly planted roses, now what do you do to keep them healthy and beautiful? Your newly planted roses need to be watered, fed, mulched and pruned and here is how to do it.

Watering

The first thing is to water your roses just enough to keep them happy and not too much so they don’t sing “Anchors Away.” An inch or two of water per week is adequate to have healthy and robust rose plants. If you live in a very dry, hot area you may need more. Roses don’t particularly like being watered by a sprinkler. If you are looking to grow perfect flowers you will want to use a soaker hose and snake it around the stems on the ground. Let the soaker hose go for about and hour or two every other day if there is no rain. You can get a rain gauge relatively cheaply at the nursery and watch how much rain you actually get in a week. It may be just enough to keep your roses happy. If the plants look droopy it’s a good indication that they need water; however, they also get droopy if they’ve had too much so a rain gauge might be just what you need to accurately estimate the amount of water they are getting through natural sources.

Feeding

Roses enjoy some rose food on occasion and will benefit from some fertilizer once a year after they are established. Once leaves begin to form on the canes you need to congratulate your rose plants for producing such beautiful waxy leaves. Apply a bit of fertilizer at that time. Then when the flowers bloom you can give the plants another shot just because they are growing so well. Stop fertilizing around Labor Day or your roses will get overgrown and ugly. Go to your nursery and purchase a rose food or general fertilizer that is good for roses; the numbers on the fertilizer will be either 10-10-10 or 12-12-12. Rose food is placed around the roots of the plants and watered in. Fertilizers can be scratched into the soil near the base of the plant, but be sure not to have it touch the leaves or canes. Water well after applying.

Mulching

Roses appreciate a little mulch around their base. This will keep weeds away and keep the soil loose and moist. Wood chips or shavings are a good thing to use. You can also use dried pine needles. Chipped leaves sometimes bring mold with them so they are not suitable for mulching roses. Spread about 2 to 4 inches of mulch over the bed during the spring leaving a little space open around the base of the rose. Replace as the mulch deteriorates or blows away during the year.

Pruning

To prune a rose you need curved edged pruning shears, long handled lopping shears (to get into the center of the rose without getting stuck by thorns), and heavy gardening gloves that will protect your hands from the thorns. Always remember the more you prune the bigger roses you are going to get. Prune tea roses, floribundas, and grandifloras early spring just as the buds begin to swell but before leaves emerge. Prune old fashioned roses and climbers immediately after flowering. They bloom on wood from the previous year’s growth so you want to give them plenty of time to produce that wood. Prune the type of roses that bloom all summer long as soon as they flower and the flowers die. This will keep them going.

Deadheading flowers that have died should be done as frequently as possible. You don’t want the old flower to start to develop seed. To deadhead prune the stem back to right above where the first place the leaves are opposite each other. This will encourage new growth. Cut at an angle with your curved edge pruning shears. Do not deadhead after the end of September because you want the plant to harden off for the winter. You may want to prune the plants down to a 3 foot height at this time so they will not be leggy and tall for the winter winds to knock over.

Always prune off any canes or stems that look dead and brown during the summer. Another major pruning will have to be done after winter is over.

Your roses will thrive just following these directions. You can plant and cultivate all kinds of roses and there are so many to choose from. Your yard could be full of roses and you wouldn’t even touch all the different varieties and types there are. Just be sure you have time for the ones you do plant.