11. Caring for Roses

I love my rose gardens and I am still learning about them, more and more each day. Caring for roses is a learned process that will differ slightly just a little from variety to variety. Your roses will beautify your gardens and add such color to your life that you will be very happy that you have added roses to your collection of flowers. Roses are found in many of the great gardens of the world, and in many of the smaller gardens found in backyards everywhere, including mine.

Roses are basically an easy plant to grow, requiring a little trimming and care over the years for great blooms that you can will use as centerpieces on your table. You should plant roses in your gardens where they will receive six to eight hours of sunlight a day. You can be successful with roses in a five to six hour daylight schedule when you are growing smaller varieties of roses. If you have a friend that is offering you a few rose bushes, or if you find rose bushes that are on sale, the best time to plant is in the very early spring and in the very late fall. When your rose bushes are not in bloom this is a very safe and dormant time that you can move roses. If you find new green growth on your rose bushes and you must move them, you can cut this particular bush back to about ten to twenty inches from the dirt, water continuously but you most likely will not have flowers for the first year.

Keep the base of your rose bushes at least six to eight feet apart. If you plant your roses to close together you may cause shading on other bushes, and your roots could become intertwined and strangle each other out. Larger rose bushes can get very long and thick roots that you will want to keep away from water pipes or sewage pipes, because over the course of twenty years you could have problems with rose roots just as you would with a tree near your water or sewage pipes. Planting your roses about six to eight feet apart will also keep diseases and pests from spreading between your roses bushes, when they are closer diseases can spread fast, and pests can jump from bush to bush even quicker!

When you see your roses are getting a little uneven when they are in their spring growing season, you can easily cut these longer spring growths off with a pair of cutters and you will still have flowers in a few weeks. As the spring months approach, consider planting even just one rose bush in your garden and you will find that the flowers are a great treasure that last many weeks during the summer months that you can your family will adore.

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