| Growing roses is not necessarily difficult. Old Garden Roses and the wonderfully vigorous ramblers, which have found their way from old farm hedge rows and cottage gardens, are amazingly easy to care for. While they do not all bloom for the entire summer, some do repeat bloom or are the original long blooming older varieties.
The key ingredients for growing healthy roses are:
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good soil, rich In humus and manure
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fertility especially manure and potash (bone meal is good)
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ample water until deep roots are well established
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sunshine (six hours is the barest minimum, per day)
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air circulation to discourage the opportunist fungi who love wet leaves to incubate
If these can be provided, along with some pruning from time to time, then most roses should fare well,
PLANTING
The single most important factor in helping a new rose act established is the size of the hole dug for the rose when planted. Dig a "BIG HOLE" fore each rose, mixing the good soil from the hole with lots of peat moss and compost (or rotten manure), and bone meal and then putting a good layer of the special soil mix under the root bail and around the roots, tamping firmly and wetting the soil thoroughly, down to the very bottom.
NUTRIENTS
Once the roses are well established, the older varieties of roses. especially the ramblers and species or species-hybrid varieties, require little in the way of special care or feeding. Only the continuous blooming varieties. such as the modern "English" or David Austin varieties and hybrid teas and similar varieties, will require quite diligent feeding and dead-heading to ensure that new growth is being constantly put out with new buds for late summer and fall blooms. For these top dressing with aged manure, seaweed or compost, in a ring around the plant, is essential every few months throughout the growing season to ensure continuously renewed leaf and bud formation.
PRUNING
Most of the older noses require almost no pruning except to shape the rose or to encourage It, after several years, to provide new canes as the old ones die and are removed as dead wood. Many ramblers and climbers bloom on old wood, so should be pruned only with caution, if next season's blooms are not to be sacrificed, as the rose must then Put out new canes for a year on which the following year buds will form.
Sometimes, especially in this climate, a rose will turn out much tatter than the books say ft should. This occasionally happens with the new David Austin (English) roses. if this should occur, the rose can be kept shorter by being pruned to the desired height in the early spring.
For pruning methods, roses can be divided into three categories:
Category One: Roses which are once-flowering (Old Garden roses and species roses which make a "big show" in summer rose season)
Included in this group are the very old Gallicas Damasks, Centifolias, Mosses, etc. They provide a massive bloom in June and July as do the wild roses from which they originated. While they do not repeat flower, they do put out more flowers all at once. calling to mind the old paintings or English and French cottage and formal gardens in full floral abundance. Most modern roses cannot produce the same impressive show In "rose season."
This type of rose can virtually survive and bloom for years unpruned, although thinning out the older canes and dead wood In will encourage new more vigorous growth. All these roses are best pruned as soon after flowering as possible to encourage new growth for flowering the following summer. Also, as many of the older roses can become quite large, albeit often valued for their size, beauty and graceful arching qualities, many gardeners prefer to cut the canes back a bit in the spring to shape them (but not more than 25% of their length or the summers flower buds will be removed as well).
Category Two: Roses which bloom continuously, or repeat periodically (newer hybrid roses)
Roses in this more modern category have been hybridized to provide flowers all summer. included in this group are Hybrid Musks, Floribundas, China and Tea roses, most Bourbons, Hybrid Perpetuals and Portland roses. and the very modern English Roses, Introduced by David Austin. These roses tend not to have as many blooms atone time, as do the old roses, but, because they must continually put forth new growth and flower buds causing heavier demands to be put on them, they require more ‘frequent pruning, fertilization end watering throughout the summer than do the older once-blooming varieties.
Pruning of continuous or repeat flowering roses should begin In the late winter, after severe freezing spells are over, The plant should be pruned back (but no more than one third to one half of its height) to provide a shapely plant and to remove all dead or thin and scraggily wood. Spent flower heads should be removed at this time as well. A diagonal cut should be made one inch above a healthy strong bud which is pointing in the direction one would wish the new growth to head. This, in conjunction with a top-dressing of compost or rotted manure, will ensure strong spring growth and good blooms.
As summer progresses, flower heads or sprays of flowers should be cut back after they are finished, at least to just above the first leaf with five lobes (leaves around the flower sprays frequently have only three lobes and do not have buds for creating new flowers as do buds in leaf nodes further dawn the stem.) "Dead- heading," as this form of pruning Is known, will encourage new growth for both further summer flowers and for new wood for the next years flowers.
In some cases it may be desirable not to "dead-head" because the hips add to the late summer and fall beauty of the bush. Usually roses grown for their attractive hips are the once-blooming varieties, with the exception of the repeat flowering Rugosas which can make hips and still provide more flowers throughout the summer. For the old once-flowering roses dead-heading is not as important as the bush cannot be induced to bloom again anyway.
Category Three: Rambling and Climbing Roses:
Rambling roses tend to grow vigorously and have lax thin branches and canes, and are frequently, though not always, once-blooming. They require almost no pruning except to thin out old woody canes at the base and to prevent the bush from becoming to crowded or overgrown. As they bloom on wood that is at least two years old, it is not wise to cut them back too much or they will be constantly trying to make new canes for flowering the following year (and the gardener will wonder why such a healthy rose fails to bloom!)
Climbing roses, often repeat bloomers; also require thinning of canes in the winter or early spring and will benefit by having the lateral branches cut back to 4-5inches. Both ramblers and climbers are pruned mainly to shape them and to keep them from taking over the garden.
Ramblers which are intended to run up into a tree or over a shed roof or wall can be left to travel for few years in order to obtain a natural and graceful look. Both can be tied upon fences or pillars. Some ramblers, if not supported, make excellent groundcovers.
FUNGUS, VIRUS AND INSECTS
Depending on the location and variety of a rose, the weather, air circulation and the presence or not of fungus spores in the neighbourhood on other plants, some roses will inevitably get black spot or mildew on their leaves. These are the two most prevalent fungus diseases on the west coast. As a rule, the older roses are more disease resistant, but stress or other factors can affect any rose's susceptibility to fungus. These can be controlled by removing the affected leaves when the fungus is first noticed and by using either an organic based fungicide, such as sulphur or baking soda spray (used more as a preventative as it changes the "Ph" of the leaf surface) or by using one of the many commercial fungicides recommended for roses. New systemic fungicides are said to be very effective.
MULCHING AND WATERING
Roses may be grown in borders with perennials in the cottage-garden style or they may be planted In beds together and mulched with groundcloth and bark mulch. Whichever method Is used, a space should be left free around the base of the plant for top-dressing with rotten manure and for new canes to come up from the base, especially important for roses on their own roots. In any event it Is good to keep them free from competition, either from other shrubs or trees or from weeds and grass.
Last Updated Winter 2003 - 2004
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