A Garden Guide to Growing Roses

A Garden Guide To Growing Roses

One of the most beautiful and distinctive flowers, roses have a reputation as being high maintenance and difficult to grow, but with a little know how and care, they can be an attractive and fragrant mainstay of your gardens.

Choosing Varieties

In addition to a kaleidoscope of colors, roses come in a number of varieties that have different growing habits and care requirements. Choosing the right variety for your space and climate is vital to cultivating a successful rose garden.

Roses grow in a number of habits. Bush roses grow upright, to heights of as much as 5', and bear flowers atop gracefully arching canes. These roses require little or no support, and are the type most people picture when thinking of roses.

Climbing roses have long, arching canes that do not actively climb on their own. They require careful attachment to a trellis or arbor, making them one of the higher maintenance varieties.

Tree roses are roses that have been grafted onto a sturdy, central trunk. They range from 2' for miniature varieties to as tall as 6' for hybrid varieties, and often take on a weeping habit when in bloom. Tree roses require more care and winter protection than bush roses, especially in cooler climates.

Finally, ground cover roses are low plants that vine along the ground. These hardy varieties work well as edging or ground cover around larger rose bushes.

Among bush roses, there are several categories, each with its own characteristics. Hybrid tea roses produce long stemmed blooms that make excellent cut flowers. These are the most widely grown of all roses, and reach 3' to 4' at maturity.

Floribunda roses remain smaller, growing to only 2' or 3' feet. These bushes produce large quantities of flower clusters all summer long, and are among the easiest roses to grow.

Grandiflora rose bushes combine the traits of hybrid teas and floribundas to produce tall bushes that produce abundant, clustered blooms. Because of their tall size and ongoing blooms, these roses make a good backdrop to smaller plantings.

Roses

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