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Care for your rose bush
Caring
For Your Roses
What
To Do When Comments
Prune
mid March
early April in cold areas.
Feed
mid March
mid April in cold areas.
Mulch
mid May
early June in cold areas.
Dead-head
July
to end of flowering
Do
not dead head if you want rose hips.
Water
When
required
See
notes below for roses to water.
March
June
Feed
as in
March, but use half the amount. Water after feeding if
the weather is dry.
July
Do
not feed after
July
- this will only encourage leaf growth at
the expense of flowers. DEAD-HEADING ROSES With
floribundas, where several flowers are produced on each stem, cut the
stem, just below the truss of flowers. WEEDING AND MULCHING The best time to mulch is late Spring - the soil is moist but at the
same time is warming up. If weeding is required, don't dig around the plants - weed by hand or on
the surface with a hoe.
Roses are not fussy plants, but will provide bigger and more flowers if
looked after. The key tasks are feeding, dead-heading, weeding and
mulching.
FEEDING ROSES
The best method of feeding is to use a fertiliser designed for roses
such as 'TopRose', however, any general purpose fertiliser will do the job.
Feed as the leaves begin to form.
If
TopRose is being used, sprinkle about 4oz per square metre,
lightly working it into the soil surface. A couple of handfuls
of Growmore or similar will help if no rose feed is available.
Dead-heading is simply removing dead flowers at regular intervals. This
encourages the growth of more flowers later in the season. The flowers
can be pinched off with your fingers or a pair of secateurs.
Roses have long tap roots to anchor them into the soil, but they
gain most of their food from their near-surface root system. It's
therefore important to keep the weeds under control. Mulching with
well-rotted organic material does this job well and also provides a slow
feed of nutrients.