Everyone loves roses - how can you not love them? Whether they come from the florist in a bouquet, or are growing gracefully in your own garden, roses make a classic statement with their beautiful flowers and lovely fragrance.

Follow a few basic techniques and you can have ravishing roses in your own
garden and landscape.  You'll have an easier time of it if you live where the summers are dry and sunshine is plentiful - conditions that discourage rose diseases.

It's best to plant roses in spring, spacing them about 24 inches apart.  Soak the roots in water before planting; and while they're taking a good, long drink, prepare planting holes that are 12 to 18 inches deep, and wide enough to accommodate the plant's root system. Work in one part organic matter with two parts soil to fill in the hole.

Apply a high phosphorus fertilizer at planting time, adding nitrogen later on when growth takes off. After each flush of blooming, add an all-purpose, balanced fertilizer. Cut back on nitrogen in late summer to help plants "harden" and avoid freeze damage. In cold climates, roses must be protected over the wintertime. Rose cones are widely available and convenient to use.

Before planting roses, trim off broken roots.  Build a mound of soil in the center of the hole that so that the plant is held aloft with the bud union just above ground level.  Fill 2/3 with soil, tamp it down, and water.  Be sure to eliminate any air pockets so the roots are in firm contact with soil.  Finish filling with soil and then water again. 

During the growing season keep roses watered, especially when they're becoming established.   

Keep an eye open for fungus problems, which include diseases such as powdery
mildew, rust, and black spot.  Powdered sulfur is one effective organic control that's useful as a prophylactic. Puff it into the air upwind of the plant and let it drift back through.  That way you'll get good coverage without burning the plant. 

Another good, low-toxic control for fungus is a combination of three
tablespoons baking soda, two and a half tablespoons horticultural oil, and one
half teaspoon insecticidal soap mixed into one gallon of water.  Apply the solution to all
plant surfaces every 10 to 14 days after new growth appears in the spring.  It's
thought that the baking powder changes pH enough to discourage fungus from
developing.  

Avoid using herbicides around roses.  They're sensitive to even minuscule
amounts carried on the wind.  Hand pull weeds around rose plants and add mulch
to keep them under control. 

Pruning is essential for maintaining healthy roses.  Cut off 1/3 of the
plant in autumn, and take off 1/3 to 1/2 of what's left in late winter or early
spring before new growth reaches a few inches long. Plants may be cut back to 6 inches in fall to make winter protection easier to accomplish.

The exception is climbing roses which bloom on second year and older wood.
For this type, thin 10 percent of the canes every year, which should include dead,
injured, and diseased wood. 

Use sharp, clean pruning shears to do the job.  Most experts recommend
making cuts at a 45 degree angle just above an outward facing bud.  In addition
to removing dead or diseased wood, open up the center to improve air
circulation.  Tests at Jackson & Perkins, one of the largest rose breeders in the country, show that simply cutting plants back with hedge shears does an adequate job.

Rose Types
• Miniature:  Short bushes (1 to 2 feet) with masses of miniature,
ever-blooming flowers.  Hardy, but require regular watering.  Use in small space
gardens or in containers. 
• Floribunda:  Compact, easy-care plants that produce clusters of small blooms
all season.  Jackson & Perkins introduced this type at the New York World's Fair in 1939. 
• Hybrid Tea:  Most widely-grown type.  Tall and stately (to 6 feet) with
large, well-shaped blooms on long stems.  Good specimen or featured plants.
• Polyantha:  Vigorous, disease-resistant plants with sprays of small blooms.
Limited range of color, but includes Cecile Brunner, the "sweetheart rose".
• Grandiflora:  Taller (8 to 10 feet) and more vigorous than hybrid tea but
with similar flowers.  Many varieties bloom in clusters on shorter stems.
Creates a mass of color.
• Tree Rose:  The flowering wood of miniature, floribunda, or hybrid tea rose
is budded onto a solid, straight cane.  Striking accent plant.
• Climbers:  Vigorous growers with large, profuse blooms.  Grow along a fence,
trellis, or train against a wall.
• Old Roses:  Wild or species roses and their immediate hybrid offspring.
Mostly hardy and vigorous.  Includes Shrub, Tea, China, and Noisette roses such
as Cabbage, Damask, and French (Gallica) rose.
• Ground Cover Roses:  Hardy, spreading roses that make a low-maintenance
carpet.  Good for slopes and rocky areas.