Rose Gardening

Rose Gardening

Creating a garden full of beautiful blooming rose bushes, plants or vines is the dream of many gardeners. Roses symbolize love, hope, passion, and a wide variety of other feelings which make these flowers loved by almost everyone.

Growing a rose garden is not too difficult of course, but some people find themselves a bit disappointed in the way their roses grow or bloom througout the year, so they could use a few growing and care tips. Others simply don’t know how or where to get started with creating a rose garden though, so we’ll summarize some of the first steps in that process too.

Planning a Rose Garden

When you’ve decided to create a rose garden within your yard, you’ll first need to decide which type of roses you plan to grow. There are hundreds of different varieties of roses, so it’s almost impossible to grow all of them. If there’s a certain style of rose garden you’d like to create, this will help you decide which types of roses to grow.

A formal rose garden for instance, might have just red roses in it. Or maybe red and white for a bit of extra drama. Wild rose gardens on the other hand, won’t have the plantings laid out too precisely, and there might be a large variety of colors and styles of roses growing in your garden at any given time.
======================================
Garden Tip...

If a new lawn of any extent is to be made, it should first be plowed deep, and if uneven and hilly, grade it to a level surface. The surface should have a heavy dressing of manure, which should be lightly plowed under, and then the surface should be dragged several times until fine, and then rolled with a heavy roller. The seed may now be sown, after which it should be rolled again. The spring is the best time to do this work, although if the fall be dry, it will answer nearly as well to do it at that time. The dryer the ground in preparing it for the seed, and for the sowing of the same, the better.
~ James Sheehan
======================================

Not only do roses come in many different shapes, sizes and colors, they also come with and without smells. Many new hybrid roses for instance, don’t seem to have much of a smell to them at all. So if you want a fragrant rose garden, you’ll have to be sure you’re selecting rose types which provide enough scent for your liking.

Also realize that roses can be grown as bushes and shrubs of varying heights, small trees, and climbing vines. So this needs to be part of your rose garden planning stages. You wouldn’t want to accidently plant a climbing rose vine in the middle of your yard without a trellis or other support for instance, unless you knew in advance that the vines would creep across the ground and that was the look you intended.

Caring for Your Rose Garden
Roses don’t really need special care, but there are certain types of plant foods, fertilizers, and soil mixes which are specifically designed for planting and growing roses. These supplements make it easy on the beginner gardener, because any soil adjustments needed have already been made, and additional vitamins and nutrients specific to growing roses is already taken care of for you too. In some parts of the country it is essential to make sure your growing environment is just right, so the roses in your garden will be able to live and thrive for years to come. If you want to learn the specifics about doing this preparations yourself in the future though, you’ll find lots of great information around the Web.

======================================
Garden Tip...

The Calla Lily, or "The Lily of the Nile," is an old and popular favorite, and is found in window-garden collections everywhere. It is a native of the tropics, where it is said it grows to an enormous size; a single flower often measuring one to two feet in diameter. The Calla will attain its highest perfection if planted in a rich, mucky soil, obtained from a swamp or bog. It also requires an abundance of water during the growing season. Callas, like all other bulbous plants, must have a season of rest. If required to bloom during the winter or spring months, they must be rested in the summer season, if this is not done we must not expect to have any success in flowering them. The blooming season can be reversed if desired, by resting in winter. Without allowing them at least three months of rest, it is useless to expect to flower them successfully. By "resting," we mean to withhold water, and allow the leaves and stalks to die down completely to the bulb. Then turn the pot on its side under a tree or grape-arbor, and let the soil dry up completely; this will kill the stalk but not injure the bulb.
~ James Sheehan
======================================
Like any other plants of course, you’ll need to put your roses in locations of your yard and garden which are appropriate for their specific light and water requirements. Be sure to add a good layer of mulch after you have them planted too, because this will help prevent weeds from cropping up, and it will help your roses maintain moisture in the soil for longer periods of time.

As your roses bloom, you’ll want to keep an eye on them and pluck off any blossoms that have died off. If you pluck these off regularly - this is known as dead heading - the bushes and vines will usually create many more blooms for you throughout the season.

Trimming and pruning your rose bushes will also help encourage them to grow and spread out over time, and we’ll cover some of those specifics in future articles.