Growing Healthy Roses With Helpful Rose Gardening Tips

You’ve probably seen pictures of other people’s magnificent rose gardens, but would you be able to produce such roses from your own home gardening efforts? If you research and pay attention to the multitude of rose gardening tips that are available to you, it’s very likely that you can do this.

Each new tip will teach you things like proper pruning and fertilizing, how to deal with rose diseases, and how to protect your garden during the winter months.

In addition to regular watering and good soil, you’ll also need proper fertilizer for whichever types of roses you have. Start around March or early April, and then do another feeding in May, and another in June or early July.

The nitrogen-phosphorous-potassium ratios vary. For hybrid teas, floribundas, grandifloras, climbers and polyanthas, each bush needs half a cup with a 10-20-20 ratio for each feeding.

Miniature rose bushes, on the other hand, need a slightly different combination of 1 tablespoon of 10-20-20 sprinkled the first time, then one cup of a 20-20-20 ratio of soluble fertilizer for the second and third feedings.

Shrub and old garden roses only need the 20-20-20 mix in the spring, or possibly again after the first blooming. Following these tips can help the plants to grow strong.

Pruning roses is done when the plants are dormant, such as in the spring just before they start to grow again. To encourage lush growth, cut all but the healthiest stalks, leaving no more than five, and cut those remaining stalks to between 12 and 24 inches.

One exception is when you first plant a rose bush, as you are encouraged to remove all new flower buds for the first two months, so the energy goes into making the plant strong. With regard to rose gardening tips for polyanthas, floribundas or miniatures, you should cut back to within six inches of the ground every three years, to renew the vigor of the bushes.

You might value a couple of gardening tips as well, when it comes to preparing roses for winter. For most, in all but the coldest zones, it’s likely enough just to strip all foliage off, tie the canes together, and pile mulch and extra soil around the base.

Tips like these are available in books, on the internet and at rose nurseries and gardens. This would work just with certain types of roses, and in other cases, particularly in warmer climates, there are other recommended methods. These methods will keep your rose nurseries and gardens safe until early spring, when it’s time to start the process all over again.