Coming Up Roses

Meandering along a garden path, spilling gracefully over an arbor, releasing heady perfume by a French door — roses are the stuff of sonnets — and notoriously temperamental. If you love roses, you’ll love these tips on growing them and enjoying their beauty.
 

• Roses are sun worshippers, so plant them where they’ll receive 5-6 hours of sun a day.
   
• Prevent weeds and lock in moisture by mulching around the base of each rosebush. Avoid watering overhead; wet leaves promote disease. Water the roots 3-4 mornings a week, using a drip irrigation system. Put it on a timer, and you’ll never have to worry.
   
• Fertilize roses 2-3 times throughout the growing season with a slow-release granular fertilizer formulated especially for roses.
   
• For low maintenance roses, select disease-resistant species, such as Alba and Rugosa roses. Roses require good air circulation to stay healthy, so plant them several feet apart and prune to keep space between the bushes.
   
• Soften the lines of a rose bed with a curvy border. Create the border with landscape edging, then plant the tallest roses in the center and shorter roses at the ends of the bed.
   
• Cut blossoms in the morning, choosing tight buds that will open indoors. Drop a penny into the vase before arranging. The copper deters bacteria, so the roses last longer.
   

The Right Type Roses

Roses come in all shapes, sizes and colors. They smell spicy, fruity, musky or not at all. They look spectacular with other plants or stop traffic on their own. For maximum impact, fill your garden with a variety of roses in the same color family, then sit back and enjoy the show.

Hybrid Tea Roses are graceful, upright bushes that produce one flower per stem. Their fragrant, old-fashioned flowers look beautiful in a formal bed.

Floribundas are bushy shrubs that produce “candelabra” clusters of blooms. They work best in a border or as low-growing hedges that enclose a garden or define a perimeter.

Grandifloras grow up to six feet tall and produce classic tea rose flowers. They make a stunning centerpiece to a formal bed or are striking alone as accent roses.

Miniature or Sweetheart Roses are fragrant shrub roses with compact stems and petite, continuously blooming flowers. They’re ideal in containers near doors and windows.

Groundcover Roses grow close to the ground, bearing flowers along the stems. They spread quickly, blanketing an area in a gorgeous carpet of flowers.

Climbersand Ramblers are vigorous roses, with long, arching canes that can be trained to grow vertically, up a wall, trellis or across a structure to hide an unsightly view.

Tree roses have a tall trunk with a rose bush grafted on top. They look lovely lining a path or flanking a bench. Planted in pots, they can dress up a patio or balcony.