Rose Gardening

On a large place a well designed rose garden is a beautiful addition. On an ordinary sized place they can be planted at either side of a doorway, as a friendly fence between your grounds and your neighbor's, as a protective hedge along the street, nestled around a birdbath, grouped in the flower borders, or raised in tubs and pots on the patio. Climbing roses can be trained on trellises or the porch. In a sunny window box the miniatures can be delightful answer.

Essential to success with roses are good, healthy plants, well-prepared soil, good drainage, and at least half a day of sunshine. Enrich the soil with well-rotted or dry manure and give it peat moss and, if it is heavy, some sand or vermiculite for better drainage. Roses like plenty of water but must have good drainage. During the growing season they like to be fed.

Carl Meyer of Cincinnati, hybridizer of Portrait, one of the, plants bare root roses in the autumn and early March. But for this season and onward he prefers roses that have been started in pots. You will find potted roses in the garden shops about now.

"I plant them just as early as I can get them," he says. "First I dig a hole about 18 inches across and two feet deep. I put two big shovelfuls of well-rotted manure in the bottom of the hole and mix that with the top soil from the hole." He always removes the container from around the plant, even though it is one of these paper affairs the roots are supposed to grow through.

"I never disturb the soil, though, or spread cut the roots," he goes on. "The potted rose will get even more water than the bare root rose, because it already has some leaves and is growing. Don't ever mound up the soil on a growing rose," he adds. He works no fertilizer into his planting mix. However, if he lacks cow manure he puts some fertilizer at the side of the hole, well away from the roots. "Roses like to let new roots grow out into the manure and fertilizer rather than have it close when they are planted," he says.

After the newly planted rose is leafed out, he gives it two handfuls of rose fertilizer. This is about late April. He gives it another two handfuls after the first bloom - about the third week in June. If you hilled your roses last winter, take the soil away in mid-April and prune off any dead tips and poor, spindly branches.

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose