Roses are easy to take care of and grow, if you exercise good gardening skills at the right time and follow a simple schedule.  Whether you have 1 or 150 roses, all it takes is common sense and timing of applications.  The other requirements are relying on Mother Nature and selecting a good rose suitable for your area.

Selecting Roses

You must first determine a sight for your rose or rose garden that allows for 4-6 hours of direct sunlight (minimum) for the day.  Good planting skills at the time of planting are a must.  You need to prepare the soil with a good planting mix (1 bag of Bumper Crop with your soil for two rose bushes).  The only other addition to your planting mix will be some form of phosphorous to help develop a sturdy root system.  (Roses love Bone Meal…one time in the spring and one time in the fall) you can use Bone Meal providing the ground is not frozen as a top dressing lightly scratched into the surface.  This not only helps stimulate good roots, but also helps aid flower production.

Plant Roses Anywhere

Choose a rose that is suitable for the site you want to plant.  You can use miniature roses for a border or mass planting, even placed among perennials.  Climbers can be placed along a fence line or on a trellis.  Floribundas do well in mass plantings or groupings of 3 or more.  Hybrid Teas, Old Fashion roses, or species roses can be planted anywhere from pots to formal beds to mailbox plantings.  I would recommend at least a 16” pot for roses, with miniatures at least 12” in size.  (The larger the pot, the better the root system!!!)

Time to Plant

You can plant your roses anytime the ground is not frozen, although spring is arguably the best time.  There are some rules to follow when planting a rose.  Most always plant your rose bud union (the knob where the canes come from) at the level of the ground or slightly below.  I would recommend you to remove the pot or grower box before you plant being careful not to damage the roots before planting.  Lightly tamp the ground after backfilling the hole, and then water enough to allow runoff.  Top off with more potting mix or mulch, using shredded hardwood, cedar, or pine mulch.  Do not use peat moss as mulch, as it will likely dry out and shed water when it becomes crusty.

Watering

Roses like their share of water, but they don’t like wet feet.  You should try to water early in the day, if possible, to allow the plant to dry before dusk.  Watering heavily at least once a week will help the plant produce more blooms and allow your fertilizers to work better.  If you need to correct a drainage problem due to clay soil, use gypsum spring and fall or the product Profile.

Spraying for Prevention

Once your roses have developed a second set of leaves in the spring, you should start your spray applications weekly.  This will prevent the rose from black spot and mildew in most all cases.  It should continue until the first week of November.  The most popular product for Rosarians today is Ortho Orthenex liquid, because of the combination of insecticide (Orthene), fungicide (Triforine), and Miticde (Vendex).  With this product you can control aphids, black spot, mildew, and even spider mites all at the same time and systemically (absorbed into the leaf surface and protects for days).

Black Spot and Curing the Problem

Black spot is a common disease for roses.  It is one of the main reasons people get discouraged to grow roses, too.  Detecting the leaves on the lower sections of the plant, and removing them from the garden is the first step towards recovery.  Without their removal, you can cause these bacterial spores to infect some or your entire rose in a short time.  Just by rainfall, they can splatter onto other leaf surfaces of surrounding roses and can defoliate a rose garden in no time.  Begin by watering your roses only in the morning.  Stop your regular spray application and begin using Ortho’s Multi-Purpose Fungicide (Garden Defense).  This product needs to be used for the next two to three weeks as a substitute for Orthenex.  Continue to remove all infected leaves from the garden.  As soon as the roses recover with no signs of black spot, you can return to the Orthenex as a “preventive” spray.  You can also prevent black spot by just mulching to a depth of 2-4 inches to eliminate splashing spores from bare ground.

Fertilizing your Roses

Roses are also heavy feeders that need a steady diet of food to maintain their flower production.  Some good ones include Bud & Bloom by Master Nursery and Schultz Bloom Plus.  Once a month feeding, after the rose has developed leaves, is easy to do until the first of September.  No hard fertilizers should be used after this date to discourage tender growth before winter.  Roses can also be pampered by using your favorite liquid soluble once a week throughout the growing season.  It can be the popular Miracle Gro, Blossom Booster, Fish Emulsion, Liquid Seaweed, Schultz Bloom Plus, or a basic 20-20-20.  This helps to fortify the color and substance of the flower itself, giving you roses that are even better than the local florist.

Pruning throughtout the Season

Pruning is the second most asked question when it comes to roses.  It is an ongoing chore from the time the forsythia blooms till late fall.  It requires you to reduce the size of the rose and remove all dead wood, so you can generate new canes on which new roses will bloom.  The only exemption to this is in climbers, which bloom on the previous years canes (called second year wood).  All that’s needed is to remove dead wood and eliminate weak canes.  Most hybrid tea and floribunda roses are pruned back to a height of 14”-20” in the spring with emphasis on keeping only canes that are healthy and larger than the width of a pencil.  If you would like a larger bush, remove dead wood and prune lighter.  One note, however, is not to use any pruning paint that has tar, asphalt, or petroleum base to it…especially Ortho’s Pruning Sealer.  It will kill the plant by poisoning the cell structure of the pith (interior of canes) causing it to blacken and die.  You may use Integra’s Rose Stick, nail polish, orange shellac, thumbtacks, or even Elmer’s glue to seal the pruning wound.  This helps to deter sawflies and borers from drilling a hole in the cane and laying eggs inside.

Problem Solving for Roses

Drying or Wilting

Utilize Bone Meal for root system – Use Gypsum for clay soil – Use Wilt-Pruf only when transplanting – Use Esbenshades Transplant Root Stimulator when planting.

PH Problems

Apply lime to adjust to 6.4 to 5.8 PH level. Standing water apply Profile or Gypsum.  Raise beds to improve drainage.

Spider Mites

Strong blast of water on plants can remove mites.  Regularly use Horticultural Oil Spray before bloom period.    Don’t plant marigolds next to roses (breeding grounds)

Japanese Beetle

Use Beetle Traps away from garden, spray or dust with Sevin or Bug B Gon. Strategically place bird feeder near roses, deadhead roses earlier than normal, or cut as buds.

Thrips

Mist blooms with Orthene or Isotox.

Mildew

Use Bayleton to cure infection.