Tips for planting roses

[M&M's Mommy]

Knowing how much I love roses, hubby just went to get me 8 roses pots in 8 different colors!!. (He promises more once we get the hang of growing them!) They're soooooooooooo beautiful & in full bloom right now with lots of young bulbs waiting to bloom.

We'd love to plant them on our front yard alongside the fence. Problem is we have never tried our hands at planting anything before so we're worry we'll kill the roses with our black thumbs. :o

Do you have any tips you care to share?

Many thanks in advance, Theresa.

[Husky_mom]

I´ve never planted anything other than green plants... lol... well I did one time and they grew but the flowers were so tiny and weed overgrew them... so I took them off...

back on topic... I´ve heard roses are tough lil plants.... but perhaps Maya&Inka´s mom has some tips.. she was an awesome garden....

I did found this
http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/1000/1212.html

http://www.rosemagazine.com/pages/planting.asp

and by experience (well, relatives experience) thay had just made a hole, put the rose in, water and voila... next thing you know they are big rose bushes with zillion flowers.... not much care given and still they grew so big.

[sirrahved]

Make sure they are planted far apart, otherwise you can get mutations!

My mom has lovely roses. She never did much to them. Just fertilized once a year, trimmed once a year, and treated for parasites as needed.

[Freedom]

Make a big hole. About twice the size of the pot. Fill half full with dehydrated manure. This is your one and only chance to get fertilizer UNDER it.

Remove from pot. Open the root ball a bit. Place in the hole. Find the "knob" at the base. Roses are all grafted, onto the roots of wild roses. You want the 'knob' to sit just on the soil line. So set the root ball accordingly and start filling in the hole. Gently lift if it settles too low as you are filling.

Over time, once in a while a shoot will poke through the ground from the wild rose roots. It is from below the knob. These you want to cut immediately as they will take hold and kill off the heirloom, or whatever rose is grafted on. You will cut it BELOW the dirt line, so it can't get any sun and grow more.

Plant them well apart, I think it is like 2 or 3 feet. Maybe there are some instructions that came with them?

Top with mulch if you want, but make sure you don't smother that 'knob' with the mulch. You want all new shoots off that knob and above it.

Good luck!

[M&M's Mommy]

Thanks for all the advices.

We planted 9 bushes, in the order of purple, light orange, deep red, yellow/pink, orange/red, yellow, hot pink, white, and orange color. Each are about 2 feet apart from each other & 1 foot apart from the block wall.

Since everybody had warned me about planting them well apart & I assume that means more than 2 ft. Unfortunately that's what we did (when I got home, hubby already digged the holes).. so I want to know what's the worst that could happen because of planting them too close to each other.

[sirrahved]

Two feet you'll definitely be okay for a few years. The problem is when they get too close they can morph into a different kind of rose. My mom had this happen twice and her long stemmed roses turned into climbers! It has to do with what is in their history I think.

[Freedom]

FROM POST 1

hubby just went to get me 8 roses pots in 8 different colors!!.

FROM POST 5

We planted 9 bushes, in the order of purple, light orange, deep red, yellow/pink, orange/red, yellow, hot pink, white, and orange color.

See how easy that was? They are multiplying already! :eek: :D