Roses, especially the fragrant ones, turn a hum-drum garden into a place of exquisite beauty. If you enjoy the fragrance of roses drifting on an evening breeze, you will want to learn all you can about growing them. It’s easy and roses come in almost every color of the rainbow, so it’s simple to find roses that will fit into your garden’s theme and color scheme.

You don’t have to have much of a green thumb to grow beautiful roses every time you try. Here are a few tips to help you grow roses that flourish:

Rose Types

Take a look at your garden before choosing roses. Roses need space to grow. Consider the climate where you live. If your garden will be buried underneath a blanket of snow and ice during the winter, be sure to choose hearty varieties.

Floribundas

Floribundas are easier to care for than hybrid teas and they produce large clusters of beautiful blooms from June until the first frost. Even then, some will hang on until a severe frost hits. These roses are great for landscaping and mass plantings. Most are fragrant and floribundas can survive temperatures as low as twenty degrees Fahrenheit. If temperatures will dip below twenty degrees, cover the base and around the rosebush with a blanket of mulch or straw to protect the roots.

Hybrid Tea Roses

Hybrid teas come in a wide variety of colors and most are fragrant. If in doubt, ask the staff of the garden center or nursery where you purchase them. These roses are ever-blooming if you dead-head spent blooms. (Pick them off.) They are perfect for bouquets or centerpieces because flowers are large and exquisite. Hybrid teas can be grown in a climate with frigid winter temperatures if the roots and base of the bush are blanketed in mulch or straw.

Hybrid Perpetuals

Hybrid perpetuals are very hearty roses and do extremely well in areas that have harsh winters. Be sure to give the roots protection in the winter months. These roses are prized by rose collectors world wide.

Grandifloras

If you are a beginner in the rose growing game, grandifloras are the perfect rose for you to grow. They grow quickly; have heavy foliage and blooms that are profuse. These roses can survive temperatures of ten degrees Fahrenheit and they fit into all garden themes and color schemes. If you wish, they can be brought indoors where they make a beautiful display.

Climbers

Climbers produce very little growth from the base. They need a trellis or other support in order to flourish. Buy hybrid tea, polyanthas, flouribunda climbers and ramblers. There are a variety of types and colors for every taste. These roses are spectacular when trained to climb an old metal bed headboard, or trained to grow around a stump or fallen log. This gives the impression that they are wild climbers or ramblers. Use your imagination to make a profound statement in your garden. Climbers and ramblers should be planted in an area where there is good air flow and ventilation. Choose between fragrant or non-fragrant varieties.

Polyantha Roses

These beautiful roses grow only eighteen inches high. Blooms are small but grow in large clusters to give a good showing. Polyanthas work well in borders or mass plantings. They are very hearty and do well in temperate climates if roots are protected in winter.

Miniature Roses

Miniature roses grow to a height of only six or seven inches. One inch blooms grow profusely and make a spectacular showing. They come in a wide variety of colors that will compliment any garden theme. You can plant miniature roses as edgings, in borders or even in rock gardens and they will thrive.

Creeping Roses

Creeping roses are great for banks, terraces and walls of garden sheds or your house. They look particularly pretty with a brick wall of a contrasting shade in the background and work perfectly for hiding an unsightly fence or wall. They are a hearty type of rose and do well in colder climates. However, creeping roses do not make as good of a showing of blooms as other types of roses, nor are they as pretty. These can also be used to creep along stumps, fallen logs, large rocks or other natural props in a garden setting.

Tips for Planting

When?

If winter temperatures in your area stay above ten degrees Fahrenheit, roses should be planted when temperatures are cool and plants are dormant. (No new growth.) If you live where temperatures plunge below zero, roses should be planted no later than October 1st and are better planted in early spring after chance of frost has passed and the ground is thawed and warm.

Where?

Most varieties of roses like between six and eight hours of sunlight daily. (Check package instructions before planting.) Morning sun is best, as afternoon sun is more intense and not as filtered. Morning sun also allows dew to burn off of the leaves early in the day to prevent leaf mould and other diseases. Shrub roses require lots of space to flourish. Be sure to plant roses according to the grower’s instructions; at least three feet apart for best results. Climbers require up to six feet of space. Planting climbers closer than six feet is not recommended, as one will overtake the other.

Soil

If you can grow annuals, grass and perennials, your soil is rich in the minerals that are required to grow roses. Be sure to add fertilizer to the hole when planting. Sheep manure, compost or peat moss works best. If you are creating a rose flower garden, spread fertilizer at the rate of four pounds per hundred square feet. Check with your local nursery or garden center for recommended fertilizers to be given throughout the year, as roses require nitrogen, potash and sodium in order to flourish. Roses do well in rocky areas, as the roots don’t like to be wet and rocks provide great drainage.

How to Plant

• Always keep the rose roots moist before you plant the bush.

• Dig a hole large enough that the roots of the rosebush can stretch to their full length. Rose roots don’t like to be cramped.

• Trim away any broken, damaged or dead roots before planting.

• Gently spread the roots out in the hole.

• Plant the rose bush so the graft knob is one inch below the ground if you live in a four-season climate and with the graft knob one inch above the ground if you live in a more temperate climate.

• Tamp the soil down on the roots within three inches of the ground surface.

• Water well and allow the water to soak into the tamped down soil.

• Add soil to cover the roots even with the ground.

• Prune the rose branches back to only six inches long, using an angled cut. Leave one-half inch of stem above any bud formation.

• Treat the ends of the cut branches with wound compound to add in healing.

• Before winter sets in, pile mulch or straw over the roots of the bush, approximately one foot in depth.

• In early spring, remove mulch or straw after the chance of frost has passed.

Rose Care

Pruning

Never prune rosebushes in winter. Wait until new growth appears in the spring. Then, prune back all winter-kill and dead branches.

Fertilizer

Fertilize rosebushes twice during the growing season. The first fertilizer should be applied in the spring soon after the first growth appears. Fertilizer should be applied again in mid-season. Never fertilize roses in the fall if you live in a four-season climate.

Winter Protection

In the fall, cover rosebush roots and base with one foot of compost or straw. You can cover the protective blanket with burlap or plastic, if desired, or if temperatures dip five degrees or more below the freezing point.

Thinning Rosebushes

Always cut out scraggly shoots or those that grow very long in order to keep your rosebushes in optimum health. Be sure to dead-head in order to keep roses blooming throughout the entire summer. To encourage new growth trim branches which are dead or diseased.

Cutting Roses

Always cut roses one inch above a five-leafed cluster and cut them on an angle to promote lasting blooms.

Starting New Rosebushes

If you have a favorite rose, you don’t have to buy a second bush in order to have more than one in your yard. Start a bush yourself. It’s easy and economical to propagate your own roses. Here’s how:

• Select a shoot of new growth with a bud.

• Make an angled cut, leaving the bud just above it.

• Remove buds and leaves.

• Place the cut piece in water that comes up half of its length. If you wish, add rooting compound to the water, though it isn’t necessary. However, it will speed up the process.

• Place the container in an area where temperatures will stay around seventy degrees Fahrenheit. Be sure the new growth has sufficient light.

• Leave for a month or six weeks, being sure that the water level is maintained.

• Protect the shoot from direct light with a piece of cheesecloth or sheer fabric. The new growth can also be set close to a window with a sheer curtain. Direct sunlight is too harsh for new growth.

• When roots are developed, carefully plant in a pot. Use half compost and half sand that is well mixed. Do not use potting soil.

• Place the pots with the new rosebushes in the ground in an area that is well sheltered and water frequently. Do not allow the roots to get too wet, but they must have sufficient water to aid growth.

• When the plants are lush and growing well, remove them from the pots and transplant into the ground in a sheltered location that gets six hours of morning sunlight daily.

Insects

Aphids

Aphids love roses. They are small greenish-yellow, brown or red insects that have a slightly pear-shaped body. These insects group on the tips of shoots, the underside of leaves and on rosebuds, where they feed on juices. This disfigures leaves and causes poor growth. To kill aphids, spray with an insecticide containing malathion, or make your own homemade concoction. (Instructions included below.)

Spider Mites

Spider mites are oval-shaped and can be greenish-yellow or burnt orange. They attack the underside of rose leaves and suck the plant’s inner juices. This will cause a yellowish or white speckling on the top side of the leaves. If a spider mite infestation is large, you may notice fine, silky webbing on the bush. This will cause the rosebush to die if spider mites are not eliminated promptly.

Leaf Tiers

Leaf tiers are small, green caterpillar-like insects that feed much the same as slugs. They spin a web and roll a leaf around their body. The best way to get rid of leaf tiers is to remove infested leaves and burn them. If you live in an area where there is a bylaw against burning, kill the leaf tiers inside the rolled up leaf by removing and crushing it.

Japanese Beetles

Japanese beetles are metallic green insects approximately three-eighths of an inch long with copper wings. They appear on rose blossoms in mid-summer. Use a herbicide or homemade concoction to eradicate them.

Slugs

You will recognize slug larvae by their tapered bodies and yellowish-green color. Slugs will chew leaves down to their skeleton, giving them a lacy effect. Be sure to stay alert for slug larvae. If any appear, spray immediately.

Homemade Remedies for Insect Control on Rosebushes

Aphids

It’s easy to keep aphids away from your rosebushes. Chop one onion and two garlic cloves. Add chopped ingredients to two cups of water. Place in a blender on high for one minute. Strain pulp from the mixture and pour the liquid into a spray bottle. Spray a mist of the mixture on the top and bottom of rose leaves, making sure they are completely covered. Aphids will not feed on leaves that are covered in this mixture.

Another way to keep aphids off your rosebushes is to wrap the base of the bush in aluminum foil. When light hits the foil, it is reflected. This confuses the aphids and sends them on their way.

Slugs

Slugs are gross and can destroy your beautiful roses. Eradicate them by using these methods:

• Wrap copper wire around the base of rosebushes to send slugs on their way.  Once they leave, they won’t come back.

• Use empty margarine containers and beer to get rid of slugs. Fill the margarine containers half full of beer and set them between rosebushes. Leave overnight. In the morning you will find the slugs dead in the beer. Repeat this process until you no longer find slugs in the beer.

• Get an extra package of table salt and keep it with your gardening supplies. When you see a slug, pour the salt directly on it. The slug will shrivel and die because the salt eats into it, much like acid will eat into human skin.

Spider Mites

To get rid of spider mites, mix four cups of flour made from wheat into five gallons of water. Add a half a cup of buttermilk. Spray this concoction on your roses to suffocate any type of mite.

Do Not Kill

There are some insects that are beneficial, not only to roses, but to all garden flowers. Do not kill praying mantis, bees, butterflies or ladybugs. In fact, if you don’t have ladybugs in your garden, consider buying some. Be sure to buy the red species, as orange ladybugs are not native to the Americas and multiply profusely.

Praying Mantis egg sacs can be purchased from nurseries and garden centers. Fasten the egg sacs to the crown of the infested rosebush. When the eggs hatch, the baby praying mantis will eat aphids and other non-beneficial insects.

These are great alternatives to pesticides and herbicides. The cost is minimal and the ladybugs and praying mantis will keep your rosebushes in optimum health all summer long by keeping insects at bay.

Interesting Facts about Roses

• The rose is the favorite flower of 85% of Americans.

• In 1986, then President Ronald Reagan signed legislation making the rose the official National Flower of the United States.

• George Washington bred roses at his home.

• A fossilized rose, which was 35 million years old, was found in Florissant, Colorado.

• Over 900 acres of greenhouse roses are harvested in the United States every year. 60% of these are grown in California.

• Florists sell millions of roses each year in the United States. The two biggest days for sales are Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day. Christmas is the third highest day for rose sales.

• Columbus’ crew picked a rose branch out of the ocean on October 11, 1492. This signaled the presence of land. The very next day, Columbus discovered America.

• Rose hips contain more Vitamin C than any other fruit or vegetable.

• Ancient Romans believed that white roses grew where the tears of Venus fell when she was mourning Adonis.

• Shakespeare referred to roses over fifty times in his works.

• Mythology says that roses grew thorns when Cupid accidentally shot an arrow into a rose garden.

• The oldest rose in the world has flourished for over 1,000 years on the wall of Hildeshiem Cathedral in Germany.

Now that you’ve read some fun fact on roses, it’s time to get to work and begin growing these beautiful flowers to bring color, life and birds into your yard. Use these tips to assure that your rose growing experience is a positive one. Enjoy the blooms that spring forth from your efforts.