SUN: You’ve heard it said over and over …. LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION. Pick a spot with 6 – 8 hours of sun!
WATER: All living things need water. The best tip for watering I can give you is—water deeply. Shallow watering leads to shallow roots—which leads to plants that are more susceptible to dry conditions. Send those roots down deep!
NUTRITIOUS SOIL: This is the most important part! Good soil is the best gift you can give your plants. Roses don’t like like “wet feet,” (Neither do most other plants!), so drainage is key. For those of you in my region (midwest Zone 5) you are probably dealing with clay soil. Amend clay soils with compost and aged manure.
DEADHEADING: To keep your roses blooming throughout the season, remove spent blooms.
FERTILIZER: We ask a lot of roses … Be your best self and bloom all season long, so they appreciate a boost! For shrub roses the best time to fertilize is the spring. For hybrid teas and floribundas, they will appreciate some fertilizer in early spring and mid summer.
MULCH: 2-3″ of mulch helps retain moisture and provides a weed barrier. It is one of my fav parts in the process as it adds the finishing touch in the garden!
GOOD COMPANIONS: We all benefit from good companions. They truly help us be our best self and in the case of roses, many of those companions play host to the good bugs they need to fight the bad bugs lurking about!
YOU! Like in all good relationships, there is no substitute for time together. They like to show off for you and the more you visit the more you will recognize what is working and what is not! Maybe it is time to take a selfie of you and your roses and post it on social media. That will surely prove how much you love them. 🙂
GARDEN REPORT…
We have not had significant rain for 3 weeks and temps are soaring into the 90s. This is hard on all plants (and people).
As we’ve talked about before, I have a “system” (read about that here) that helps with a portion of my garden and those areas hardly know what the real weather conditions are, but for the rest of the garden, very little watering is happening due to the fact that the gardener (me) has been in a very busy season and has had very little time.
Proving once again that roses are not the divas many believe they are, here are pictures of my roses this week. Yes, many of these blooms are coming from areas that have not had the benefit of extra care!
Thanks for stopping by!
I hope this week is filled with all that you need to be your best self and that you have time to “stop and smell the roses.”
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