Gardening: Roses to plant now for beautiful blooms next year
Recognised as Britain’s favourite flower, it’s good to know that roses aren’t as hard to grow as people believe.
For roses to thrive, it’s important to grow them in a sheltered, sunny spot with rich, well-drained soil. Where possible, avoid planting them in an area where roses have been grown in recent years and they shouldn’t become victim to soil-borne re-plant disease. You’ll find many gardeners offer tricks and tips to improve the soil and make it more acid, which roses love. The most popular advice given is to sprinkle coffee grounds and used teabags around the plants, and even a banana skin!
Although pot-grown roses can be bought and planted all year round, specialist nurserymen also offer roses that are grown in an open field and then dug up when the weather conditions are right in October or November. They usually send out their roses as bare root plants without pots or compost, which doesn’t harm them because they’re dormant throughout winter and will not produce new roots until spring. The advantage of buying bare root means that you’ve more choice, as there are more varieties available, and plants are cheaper than potted one.
When planting in winter, it’s important that the weather is mild and that the soil is not frozen. Roses are quite deep-rooted plants, so dig a hole, about 40cm wide and 60cm deep, or roughly twice as wide as the plant’s roots and break up the base of the hole and mix in a generous amount of composted organic matter.
Trim off any damaged bits of roots, then gently spread them out and arrange over a slight mound of soil in the centre of the hole. Make sure that the ‘bud union’ – the knobbly bit on the stem where the cultivated rose has been grafted onto rootstock and from where the shoots emerge – is at soil level, otherwise the rootstock will take over. You can check the level by laying a cane, across the top of the hole.
For the best results
When the plant is settled at the right height, sprinkle Rootgrow (rootgrow.co.uk), which is a blend of beneficial mycorrhizal fungi over the roots to help them establish. Backfill the hole with a soil-and-compost mix, firming it down gently with the heel of your boot, to ensure that the rose is secure and there are no air pockets in the soil before watering the plant well.
To keep roses healthy, don’t plant them too closely together.
In a large border, plant in groups of three or five, arranged 45cm apart for impact and top the bed with a 5cm layer of mulch. In a mixed border, you can underplant the roses with ground-hugging herbaceous perennials and summerflowering lily bulbs. Peonies or hardy geraniums and roses are classic combinations. You won’t go wrong if you plant the cottage-garden favourite, catmint or Nepeta ‘Six Hills Giant’, which produces a mass of lavender-blue flower spikes throughout summer, with a beautiful pink rose.
Bare-root roses may look like a bundle of sticks, but they’re a great way to buy plants for gorgeous blooms next year
If you are growing a climbing rose against a building, plant the rootball at least 45cm away from the wall in soil that’s been enriched with well-rotted manure or compost. Tie in the stems in a fanning arrangement – bending or arching them down will encourage blooms along the length of the stem.
To keep roses strong and shapely, prune out weak shoots in March each year. Roses are also hungry plants, so feed them with a rose fertiliser during the growing season and take a tip from the experts and give them a dose of Epsom salts when they’re in full leaf to make their colour more intense.