How to Care for Roses

Roses have always been the staple of a beautiful garden. Many gardeners see them as a proof of their skills and ability to care for and maintain a healthy garden. The reason for this is that roses use to be difficult to care for, but now a days, with hybridisation and the resulting new types of roses, caring for those wonderful blooms is simply too easy to ignore.
The new rose
Most hardy roses able to resist diseases belong to a new class: the modern shrub rose. It combines the strength and adaptability of old the shrub roses and the repeated flowering hybrid tea roses, grandiflora and climbing. The modern rose shrub generally produces a greater quantity of stems than rose bushes, is denser and more attractive. They can be large or small, simple, semi-double or double flowers in dense clumps or spread over the entire shrub. This results in a full range of colors and a pleasant aroma.Furthermore, these roses are rarely grafted. Grafting a rose on an attractive rose rootstock significantly reduces the hardiness. The graft has a tendency to open in freezing conditions, which complicates maintenance. The cuttings produced by modern roses can be planted like any other shrub.

How to choose a rose
When purchasing roses, you should always ask if it was grafted. If yes, move on to another. This is true even for the rose "stems" (cut in the shape of small trees), which are easy to find since they require no special maintenance. Preferably, buy roses grown in pots, even if they are more expensive than bare root roses. Their success rate is much higher and they can be planted anytime during the season, while the bare-root roses are available for a short time each spring, and should be planted immediately.Choose a well-branched plant, with balanced branches, arranged around the plant. Depending on the season, the plant may have leaves or not. If it does, avoid those with yellow or brown leaves, they may have suffered abuse from weather or lack of water. The absence or presence of buds or flowers is not an important factor. Obviously, choose a rose adapted to your hardiness zone.

How to cultivate modern roses
For best results with modern shrub roses, you must provide good growing conditions.

Sun light: They require full sun, however, a little shade during the hottest hours of the day will do no harm.

Soil: The ideal soil is rich with good drainage. Unlike other plants, roses like to clay soil. It is not necessary or even desirable to amend clay soils with organic matter when planting. On the other hand, if the soil drains poorly (if puddles form after a good watering), it is better to add fresh soil and create a raised bed.

Planting: Dig a hole twice as wide as the root ball and whose depth corresponds to the height of the mound. Remove the pot and the root ball and centerit in the hole: it must be the same depth as in the pot. Fill the hole with soil. Spacing between plants depends on the size of the variety. Read the label carefully.

Mulching: After planting, cover the soil with 3 to 5 inches of mulch to prevent weeds from growing and maintain moisture in the soil. Another benefit of mulch is to keep the leaves clean and reduce diseases.Watering: During the first year, you need to water your roses carefully as soon as the soil begins to dry out. Once established, they will only need watering in times of severe drought.

Fertilization: In general, modern roses are less greedy than the hybrid tea roses and grandiflora. A handful of compost per plant, in spring is all they need. You can also apply an organic fertilizer.

Size: Probably the biggest difference between the maintenance of modern shrub roses and bushes roses, is that you only need to remove dead branches (those that are brown or black rather than green) and weak or broken branches. The oldest branches (four or five years old) can be cut down to about 3 to 4 inches to the ground to make room for the young, more vigorous growth.

Winter Protection: It is not necessary if you've chosen roses with the correct hardiness for your zone. Insects and diseases: Most modern shrub roses are very resistant to diseases and insects, they rarely have problems that require treatment.

All in all, roses are becoming easier and easier to care for, yet their terrible reputation at being very difficult to care for remains. Use it to your advantage! Care for your roses and be the envy of your neighbours!

Source:
http://www.gardenguides.com
Easy to grow roses