How to Grow and Care for Roses in Your Home Garden

To ensure your rose bushes are strong enough to last the winter, you’ll need to plant them at the right time.

• If you buy “bare-root” roses, or dormant rose plants whose roots are packed in damp shavings (most often the case with mail-order bushes), you’ll want to plant them in early spring to make sure they have a full growing season to settle in before winter.
• If you buy non-dormant rose plants in containers (most often the case with local nurseries), the timetable is more flexible and these bushes can be planted anytime during spring or early summer—just don’t wait until late summer, because the roses might not be adjusted enough when winter hits.

Rose bushes are simple to plant—but when planting roses, be sure to wear gloves to avoid getting pricked by thorns.

1. 1. Prepare the rose plants. If you’re planting bare-root roses, soak the roots in water for at least eight hours. If you’re planting potted roses, loosen the roots from the soil.
2. 2. Choose and prepare the flower bed. Roses need a sunny spot, so choose somewhere that gets at least six hours of full sun per day. Their soil should be loose, loamy, and with very good drainage—roses are especially sensitive to “wet feet,” when their roots sit in constantly wet soil. They don’t have special requirements when it comes to soil acidity—anything between a pH of 5.5. And 7.0 will do.
3. 3. Dig the holes. Rose bushes grow large and need a lot of horizontal space, so you’ll need to dig each planting hole wider and further apart than you think—most rose varieties do well in holes between fifteen and eighteen inches wide, spaced around three feet apart. Each hole should be just deep enough to fit the rose plant’s root system.
4. 4. Plant the rose bushes. Place each plant in a hole. When refilling the hole with soil, add in garden compost or other organic matter to give the root ball a healthy source of nutrients. Water each plant, then mound the soil level up around the base of each to protect your new roses as they acclimate.

Many varieties of garden roses are very hardy and don’t ask for much maintenance, but for the best results, a few basic rose-care steps will make your bushes—whether they are climbing roses, floribunda roses, or hybrid tea roses—really shine:

• Water. Roses love water, and during warm months they do best if you water them deeply twice a week rather than if you water them shallowly every day. As the weather cools in the fall, reduce the amount of water you give them—they’ll die if their roots are too wet during winter.
• Fertilize. While artificial liquid fertilizers may seem attractive, they often encourage soft, weak growth that can’t withstand pests. Instead, opt for organic fertilizers like compost, organic mulch, leaf litter, and grass clippings, which will nourish your plants slowly and steadily during the season. A good fertilizing schedule would be to add new fertilizer once a month during the spring and summer.
• Prune. Roses appreciate a good pruning in early spring. Be sure to wear elbow-length gloves when pruning roses to avoid being pricked by thorns. Using a pair of garden shears (or loppers, if your bushes are thick and well-established), trim back all old, dead, or damaged canes. Then, use a process called “deadheading,” in which you remove old blooms to encourage new growth—when a bloom begins to wilt, trim the cane back to the first five-leaf stem.
• Take care of pests and diseases. Roses can fall prey to many pests and diseases, such as Japanese beetles, aphids, black spot, and fungal diseases like powdery mildew. Most pests can be deterred by keeping your rose bushes clean and removing debris consistently, and most diseases are the result of excess moisture—so keeping the leaves dry and pruning to stimulate air circulation can solve most problems early on. If you’re struggling with pests or disease even after good care, consider choosing one of the modern hybrid types of roses, most of which are bred to be pest- and disease-resistant.

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