Roses are among the most exquisite and versatile garden plants, plus they are pretty easy to care for if you know what to do. This quick guide on how to grow roses is your month-by-month handbook for unlocking the full potential of your rose garden.
There’s a rose for every garden
- Roses come in various shapes and sizes, including patio roses, shrub roses, ramblers, and climbers.
- Almost all of them make wonderful cut flowers.
- Roses grow best in full sunlight and rich soil, but some can tolerate some shade and poorer soil.
- Roses are hungry plants. Use a rose feed, like Wonder Colourburst Rose Food, to encourage summer flowering.
- From May to June, plant bare-root roses. Any time of year is a good time to plant roses in containers.
Your rose care calendar
Learn how to grow roses and care for them with these monthly growing and maintenance tips.
January
- Start off your year with a light summer pruning. Pruning stimulates growth for an extended blooming period. Remember to use sharp and clean pruning shears while trimming your rose plants.
- You can get a beautiful autumn rose display in six to eight weeks by fertilising with Wonder Rose & Flower or Wonder Colourburst Rose Food.
- Roses enjoy lots of water at this time of the year. Water them regularly, paying special attention when the weather is dry.
- Keep a close look out for red spider mites. If you spot any, treat the infestation with Efekto Rosecare 3.
- Deadhead your rose bushes.
February
- Check the underside of leaves for red spider mites and treat with Efekto Rosecare 3.
- Continue deadheading your roses, but only remove the dead blooms and avoid shortening or removing the stems.
- As new buds develop, feed with a granular fertiliser such as Wonder Rose & Flower.
- Water your roses regularly. Even well-watered roses can wilt in very hot, dry conditions. Overhead watering, especially at midday, brings some relief to the roses and will not cause a black spot.
March
- Water your rose garden only as needed. As the weather cools, your roses don’t need as much water.
- Continue deadheading your roses.
- Give them nutrients by scattering some granular fertiliser all around the base of each plant. Wonder Rose & Flower has a balanced blend of nitrogen for best foliage development and potassium for quality bud formation and pest and disease resistance.
- Spray frequently for rust, black spot, mildew, and aphids. Treat aphids with Efekto Aphicide Plus, a systemic suspension concentrate contact and stomach insecticide for use in the home garden to control sucking insects.
April
- March and April are very similar. Continue giving your petalled flowers about the same amount of water as in March.
- Use Wonder Fruit & Flower to feed your roses this month. This fertiliser is a high-potassium fertiliser for healthy flowering growth.
- Aphid control should continue, as should mildew, black spot, and rust spraying. Efekto Funginex and Virikop can be used to treat black spot and rust.
May
- If your area experiences winter rainfall, it’s important to spray your rose plants with a fungicide to treat black spot, as needed.
- Rosecare Plus works on all types of roses. This is an all-in-one product that controls aphids, mealy bugs, red spider mites, thrips, black spot, rust, and powdery mildew.
June
- It’s time to transfer your potted roses to the garden! Prepare your roses for moving. Apply Wonder Kelp to help ease the shock of the move.
- An important factor to remember when learning how to grow roses is that the soil needs to be rich! Feed your standard roses with Wonder Fruit & Flower.
July
- Now it’s time to do the pruning. Use sharp pruning shears to remove leaves, stems and buds.
- Remove old mulch.
- Loosen the soil and dig in Wonder Super Phosphate and a handful of slow-release 3:2:1 fertiliser, such as Wonder Plant Booster All Purpose.
August
- Complete pruning and reapply new mulch to add depth to your rose garden’s soil!
- After pruning, spray Kumulus WG on the plant’s bare stems to eliminate insects and fungus spores. View Efekto’s full range of plant protection products online.
September
- As the weather warms up in spring, water your rose bushes and shrubs more frequently.
- Give your roses their first food of the new season with Wonder Colourburst Rose Food.
- Continue the treatment for black spot and mildew with Rosecare Plus.
- Use Rosecare 3 to control aphids, thrips and red spider mite.
October
- By now, you should be enjoying your first bloom of flowers. It may be tempting to pick blossoms from the back of your rose shrub to hide the absence of flowers, but it is ideal to remove roses that receive the most sunshine because these will have the strongest stems, extending their life after being cut. These roses will make beautiful displays in your home.
- Feed as mentioned for September.
- Water regularly – each garden plant needs about 10 litres of water a week, especially as the weather heats up. For the water-conscious gardener, explore Wonder Waterwise Crystals.
- Spray rose buds for caterpillars, bollworm, chafer beetles, etc with Efekto Karbaspray. Remember: spray the buds when using an insecticide.
November
- Deadhead your roses. When the bloom on the rose starts to fade, always trim it back just above the fifth node.
- Water twice a week.
- Feed as for September.
- Check the underside of leaves for red spider mites and treat with Kumulus WG if infected.
- Continue spraying for fungal infections.
December
- Cut out unproductive twiggy growth.
- Continue to water twice weekly.
- Remove side buds from hybrid tea bushes if larger blooms are desired.
- Feed as mentioned for September.
- Top up mulch if necessary.
Gardening dictionary
Pruning
Plant pruning involves selectively removing certain parts of a plant, such as branches, buds, or roots.
Deadhead
This term is used to describe the action of removing dead flower heads from a plant.
Mulching
This is the act of covering soil with mulch, such as bark, wood chips, leaves, and other organic material, in order to preserve moisture and improve the condition of the soil.
Different types of roses
Learning how to grow roses starts with choosing your rose types.
The most widely cultivated rose is a hybrid tea rose. Strong stems with large, well-shaped flowers. Bushes grow from the base outward. (90 cm – 2.3 m).
Miniature roses have more blooms in a variety of colours and better-shaped buds. (20 cm – 80 cm). These are very good for border planting and growing in containers.
Roses with long, climbing branches that need to be supported against a wall, trellis, or pergola are known as climbing or rambling roses.
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