Grow and care for roses.
What Is Included in This Post:
Season When Roses Bloom
Planting Roses
Harvesting Rose Petals
Pruning Rose Bushes
Climate for Rose Bushes
Growing Roses From Cuttings
Pests and Diseases
Rose bushes bring delight to the garden from their gorgeous spring blooms to the bountiful hips that follow in the fall season. You can be sure to be given a huge harvest from your rose bush so be prepared to learn how to preserve the rose petals if that’s your fancy!
I have been growing roses for six years. The rose bushes in my cottage garden have many colors, including yellow as the sun. They can live for about 6 to 10 years or up to 50 years with exceptional care.
In this post, we explore how to grow, care for, and harvest a rose bush and how to preserve rose petals as well as how to propagate new rose bushes from cuttings!
Let’s learn more about rose bushes!
This is a pinnable post. Tap or hover over any image in this post to pin to your Pinterest Boards.
Season When Roses Bloom
Roses have bloom cycles from May through October, depending on how warm the climate is. Rose bloom cycles typically happen every five to seven weeks between these months if they have been deheaded. This means you get to harvest a ton of rose petals each season!
After deheading roses, they will have a small period each cycle to produce new flowers. Roses will continue to produce flowers all season after the spent blooms are removed.
You must prepare your rose bushes each season for successful blooming cycles by preparing ahead of time with proper pruning and care. While roses can be high maintenance, their splendid blooming cycles that last for several months are well worth the effort!
- Roses have several bloom cycles all season from May to October.
- Deheading spent blooms can promote more blooms all season.
Planting Roses
Selecting the site: Roses need full sun to bloom so be sure to select a site that receives at least six to eight hours of sunlight.
Preparing the soil: Apply nutrient-rich compost to the soil and dig a hole slightly wider than the rootball. Roses need soil with good drainage. You can perform an easy soil drainage test with my other post 4 Easy DIY Garden Soil Tests to Do Now to get an idea of how well your soil drains and how to improve your soil and what steps to take.
Harvesting Rose Petals
To me, harvesting rose petals is the fun part of growing my own roses. I love the splendid rose petals and use them for many things from beauty regimens to medicinal uses, and fun crafts.
To harvest rose petals, wait until they are spent and ready to be deheaded. They will still be beautiful for crafting and healthy for beauty and medicinal uses. The more you harvest, the more they bloom!
Using your pruning shears, remove spent blooms midmorning, just after the morning dew has dried, and before the scorching sun hits the roses.
- Wait until the blooms are spent.
- Wait until midmorning just after the morning dew and before the scorching sun arrives.
- Remove spent blooms with pruning shears.
Dry out the rose petals in a single layer for several days until they are completely dry. You can dry whole heads, buds, or remove the petals first before drying, depending on how you want to use them. I love crumbling my dry rose petals into a crumble or a powder, depending on how I plan to use them.
Pruning Rose Bushes
Take note that pruning roses are the first step in maintaining good quality care they need to thrive. Pruning properly can help them produce gorgeous blooms and prevent diseases from spreading from season to season.
Roses are thorny, so you will need to protect yourself with good gloves and long sleeves. You also want to protect your rose bushes, so be sure to only use clean, sanitized, sharp pruning shears.
Know when to prune your rose bushes by the zone you are in with this easy guide:
- Zones 3 and 4: May.
- Zones 5, 6, and 7: March or April.
- Zone 8: February or March.
- Zone 9: January or February.
- Zone 10: January.
What You Can Do
Cut all dead wood to the base of the plant. Dead wood is brown inside while living wood is green inside. Dead wood is no good, so get rid of all of them. Cut out crossing branches to help open up the center for sunlight and airflow to prevent diseases. You will also want to remove all thin and weak branches. Any branches thinner than the width of a pencil should be removed.
Ensure that you clean up all pruned branches, twigs, and spent blooms from the ground to prevent the diseased branches from contaminating the bush. You took the time to remove the dead branches, therefore take the time to remove them from the area completely, and do not allow them to stay on the ground to rot.
- Cut and remove all dead wood to the base of the plant. (Dead is brown inside while alive is green inside).
- Cut and remove all crossing branches to open the center for sunlight and airflow.
- Cut and remove all thin (thinner than a pencil) and weak branches (along with anything that doesn’t look healthy).
- Remove all pruned branches, twigs, and spent blooms from the area to prevent the spread of disease (keep the soil healthy).
Climate for Rose Bushes
Roses do best in warmer climates, however, they can tolerate extreme temperatures when they are adapted to them and cared for really well.
Roses can tolerate cold temperatures down to 10 degrees F. If your temperature reaches further below this temperature, it is best to cover them by wrapping them in a garden blanket to protect them.
Growing Roses From cuttings
Roses are easy to propagate with fresh cuttings. It is a great and free way to acquire more roses for your garden or to share with others.
While you can successfully take cuttings from roses any time of the year for propagation, it is best to take cuttings in warmer weather conditions such as in the spring when temperatures are at least 55 degrees F and early in the morning when the dew is still on the roses.
Propagation Steps
What you will need: Sharp clean pruners disinfected with rubbing alcohol, a small well-draining pot, potting soil mixed with perlite, rooting hormone (optional), and a clear plastic covering for a mini greenhouse effect. I find that a 2-liter soda bottle filled halfway with the potting mix works great. I cut the bottle in half and tape it together once the cutting has been placed. The tape can be removed once the cutting has signs of growth and has rooted well.
What you will do: With the clean pruners, cut the cuttings off from the mother plant approximately six inches in length. You can take a rather long cutting from a branch of a rose bush that needs to be pruned and cut it in equal six-inch lengths. If it is pruning time for the rose bushes, you can acquire many rose cuttings during the pruning season!
Tip: When you are pruning, keep a bucket of water nearby in the shade to place the cuttings into until pruning is done to help keep the cuttings well hydrated and from drying out in the sun lying on the ground. This is especially helpful if you are pruning multiple rose bushes.
Caring for the Cuttings
Once you have all your cuttings, carefully slice off one inch of flesh from the bottom of all the cuttings to encourage root growth. Try not to remove all the flesh on the bottom of the cutting, just scrap a few times around the stem.
Dip the cuttings in root hormone (this step is optional, but helpful).
Remove all blooms and all but a couple of leaves per cutting. If you took multiple cuttings from one long branch, be sure to leave each cutting with a couple of leaves per cutting.
Place your cuttings in your prepared pot or containers or the 2-liter soda bottle as discussed previously and keep in a warm shaded area, a greenhouse preferably.
Keep the humidity covers on them and check on them periodically to ensure the soil does not dry out.
Rooting can appear after a couple of weeks, though typically it can take a couple of months so do not fret how long it is taking since this is normal.
Look for new leaf growth and root shoots that appear from the bottom of the pot. At this point, you can remove the humidity covers and care for them a while longer in their little pots until they are ready to be planted in their permanent beds.
Pests and Diseases
Rose gardens can be affected by pests and diseases. While these types of pests and diseases can be devastating to your rose garden, you can take proactive measures to protect your rose bushes. You can take organic natural approaches to combat common pests and diseases in your rose garden.
List of Rose Garden Pests
- Agrobacterium tumefaciens.
- Aphids.
- Beetles.
- California red scale.
- Caterpillar.
- Cottony cushion scale.
- Japanese beetle.
- Leafcutting bees.
- Metallic flea beetles.
- Nematodes.
- Phragmidium.
- Rose aphid.
- Rose chafer.
- Scale insects.
- Spider mite.
- Thrips.
- Yellow tea thrips.
List of Rose Garden Diseases
- Black spot.
- Botrytis blight.
- Common cankers.
- Crown gall.
- Downy mildew.
- Mosaic.
- Powdery mildew.’
- Rust.
- Winter injury.
Summary
I hope I have inspired you to grow your own rose bushes.
If you were encouraged by this post, I invite you to check out my FREE Self-Sufficiency Academy for fun free printables, planners, and charts.
ENTER MY FREE SELF-SUFFICIENCY ACADEMY HERE
I invite you to check out some more of my posts!
How to Grow and Care for Hollyhocks
Blessings,
The Off Grid Barefoot Girl
Discover more from The Off Grid Barefoot Girl
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
