Spring brings plenty of changes to landscaping, beginning with eye-catching flowers of all types and colors that begin coming alive in April.
Regardless of the type of classification of roses you might be growing, April is the perfect time to begin preparing your roses so that they will flourish throughout the spring and summer. The best way to ensure a gorgeous garden of roses is through proper pruning, followed by a nutrient rich start-up fertilizer; if you do this you are giving your roses a wonderful boost that will result in countless stunning blossoms.
Landscape and shrub varieties of roses, such as the popular Knock Out Rose, prefer strong pruning in early spring, which will manage balance, while creating uniform branching. Pruning will also reduce and control size, as the growth of these roses is quite aggressive. In fact, they prefer to be pruned back by as much as 50 percent or more, depending on your height preference for the season.
Hybrid Tea Roses, and other forms of monthly bloomers, are not quite as aggressive as the Knock Out Rose. H owever, they still require pruning the overall plant, down to 12-18 inches in height, while also removing any diseased or damaged canes/branches. Many times, thinning is necessary in order to remove smaller branches, or ones that cross or are too closer to one another. A uniform, spaced and balanced structure is the key to the perfect rose bush.
Thorough clean up any old rose foliage or debris from beneath your roses is also crucial to their growth. Simply pull away any winter mulching that was used to protect upper canes, then apply a quality rose fertilizer, such as Fertilome Rose Foot, or our popular Mills Magic organize rose food.
Proper pruning the key to having beautiful roses because it stimulates growth and flowers, while removing dead, weak of sickly canes that can zap energy from the rose, which encourages disease. Do it correctly, and you’ll always have gorgeous roses.
So, don’t wait – visit us now and one of our gardening associates will happily assist you in selecting one of the many products available now that will get your roses off to a great start this spring.
