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 Planting roses is fairly simple gardening stuff. The first thing
is to never let the rose roots dry out. If you do, the rose will either
perform poorly the first year or simply die. It does help to soak the
roots in warm water for an hour before you plant if you’ve purchased
the rose as a bareroot plant. Container grown plants do not have to be
soaked.
Always did a dollar sized hole for a 25-cent plant. The bigger
the hole, the looser the soil will be and the easier those tiny feeder
roots will grow quickly. I can’t emphasize this enough. And never, ever
(with a bare root plant) cut off healthy roots. You can remove broken
roots but leave every healthy one that’s on the plant. They’re your
ticket to early blooms.
When you backfill the planting hole, I always add one shovel of
peat and one shovel of compost for every three shovels of soil. This
gives the rose some quick nourishment and makes a wonderful soil for
expansion. The only exception to this is if you’re planting in a clay
soil and then I only add the compost. I do not add the peat as I want
the rose roots to grow out into the soil that surrounds the planting
hole. They might establish faster in peat-amended soil but they’ll grow
better and survive longer in compost-amended soil.
The depth of the bud union (the swollen part where the roots
meet the good top rose) is conventionally 2-inches below ground in
North America. In northern sections, gardeners have started planting
this 6-inches below the ground to protect it during harsh winters.
After the rose has been installed in the hole, backfilled and
the ground thoroughly pushed down around the plant, I always turn on
the hose to thoroughly wet down the ground. After the ground is muddy,
I leave the hose to trickle for a half hour or so to really soak the
ground.
After that, I just wait for blooms and their delightful fragrance.
About The Author
Doug Green has written two rose books and answers gardening questions in his free newsletter at http://www.learn-rose-gardening.com.
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