Allan’s Rose Tips & Favorite Varieties List

Allan’s 10 Keys To Success with Roses

1. Select a location with at least 6 hours of full sun, yet sheltered from hot and cold winds. Give them plenty of space to allow for good air circulation around the plants. Space them no less than three feet apart for shrub roses and 5 feet apart for climbers.
2. Place roses in soils that are slightly acidic, amended with organic matter, well-drained, and deeply spaded or tilled.
3. Mulch your roses with 2 inches of cotton bur compost or finely ground pine bark as soon as they are planted to prevent weeds and protect the soil from drying out.
4. Fertilize roses with a controlled-release fertilizer in March and again after the first flush of blooms has faded.
5. Water roses with drip irrigation or soaker hoses to prevent wet leaves from developing fungal problems like black spots and powdery mildew. Never let them dry out!
6. Spray roses when black spot fungus disease appears and continue on a weekly basis until warm and dry conditions lessen disease incidence.
7. Be on the lookout for aphids, spider mites, thrip, leaf beetles, and other pests that attack roses and spray with approved insecticides according to the label directions.
8. Pinch off spent blossoms with fingers or small pruners to keep energy from going into seedpod (rose hips) production.
9. When cutting blooms for a bouquet, leave at least two sets of five leaflets on the stem from which new shoots can develop for future flowers.
10. Use all types of roses, hybrid teas, floribunda, grandiflora, shrub landscape roses, and climbers, for a summer-long succession of colorful and fragrant flowers!