From soil preparation to the long life of a well-grown garden rose
There is no plant in the canon of temperate horticulture that has been more written about, more obsessed over, more misunderstood, or more unjustly feared than the rose. Beginners approach it with a kind of reverence that tips easily into anxiety; experienced gardeners are sometimes heard to say that they have given up on roses, that they are too much trouble, too disease-prone, too demanding. Both attitudes are, in their different ways, mistaken.
The rose is not a fragile aristocrat requiring constant attendance. It is, at its heart, a tough and adaptable shrub that has survived in cultivation for thousands of years precisely because it is willing to grow in conditions that would defeat many of its neighbours. What it asks for is not complicated: deep, fertile, well-drained soil; an honest amount of sun; reasonably regular feeding; and the kind of attentive pruning that, once understood, takes no more than an hour or two each year and rewards the effort with months of flower.
The difficulty, if there is one, is that the rose has accumulated so many centuries of folklore and received wisdom — much of it contradictory, some of it actively misleading — that the genuine requirements of the plant can be difficult to locate beneath the accumulated mythology. This guide attempts to clear away that mythology and describe, as plainly as possible, what growing roses well actually requires.
Part One: Understanding the Rose
The Major Groups
The world of roses is, at first encounter, bewilderingly various. A few principal categories provide useful orientation.
The old roses — gallicas, damasks, albas, centifolias, mosses — are the roses of history: the flowers of medieval monastery gardens and Dutch still-life paintings, grown for many centuries before the introduction of repeat-flowering from the China rose changed everything. Most flower only once, in June, but with an intensity and fragrance that many regard as unsurpassed. Gallicas in particular — among them the ancient Rosa gallica var. officinalis, the Apothecary’s Rose, grown since the thirteenth century — have a depth of colour and a resistance to disease that makes them among the most rewarding of all garden shrubs. They ask very little and give very much.
The hybrid tea, that mid-twentieth century dominant, is the rose most people picture when they hear the word: the long-stemmed, high-centred bloom of the florist and the municipal roundabout. It flowers reliably and repeatedly, in colours of considerable range, and can be magnificent in the right hands. It is also the rose most likely to require spraying, most prone to blackspot and mildew, and most demanding of regular attention. Those who love it tend to love it absolutely. Those who do not find the plant too stiff, too formal, and too much work.
The floribunda rose produces its flowers in clusters rather than singly, sacrificing something of the individual bloom’s distinction for a quantity and continuity of colour that makes it highly effective in borders. It tends to be more disease-resistant than the hybrid tea and rather easier to accommodate.
The shrub rose is a broad category that encompasses many of the most garden-worthy roses available. The modern shrub roses — particularly the English roses bred by David Austin from the 1960s onwards, and the hardy Canadian and German shrub rose programmes — combine the flower forms and fragrance of the old roses with the repeat-flowering habit of the modern. They are, for the majority of gardeners, the most rewarding class of all: beautiful in flower, graceful in habit, generous in their willingness to perform without excessive intervention.
Climbing and rambling roses deserve a category of their own, though they are often confused. The true rambler — Rosa filipes ‘Kiftsgate’, for example, or ‘Veilchenblau’ — flowers once only, in great cascades of small blooms, typically in June or July, and can reach proportions that surprise the uninitiated. ‘Kiftsgate’ in a large tree is a spectacle genuinely unlike anything else in the British garden. The climbing rose, by contrast, is generally a repeat-flowering plant with larger individual blooms, better suited to walls, arches, and pergolas where it can be trained to cover a defined structure.
The species roses — the wild roses from which all cultivated forms ultimately descend — are among the most beautiful and the most underused plants in temperate horticulture. Rosa moyesii and its forms, Rosa glauca with its pewter foliage, Rosa mulliganii scrambling magnificently through trees, Rosa rugosa with its crinkled leaves and informal, fragrant blooms — all reward the gardener who takes the trouble to seek them out.
What a Rose Actually Needs
The first requirement is light. Roses are sun-loving plants that perform best in a position receiving at least six hours of direct sunlight daily. In the shade of trees or the shadow of tall buildings they become drawn, produce fewer flowers, and are far more susceptible to disease. There is no variety that genuinely thrives in deep shade; those described as tolerating shade will merely survive it.
The second requirement is air. Good air circulation around the plant is one of the most effective preventives of the fungal diseases — blackspot, mildew, rose rust — that trouble many gardeners. Roses planted too closely together, or trained too tightly against a wall where air cannot move freely behind them, will invariably suffer more than those given room to breathe. When planning a rose planting, err towards generosity of spacing.
The third requirement is water, particularly in the establishing years. A newly planted rose needs consistent moisture at the root for at least its first two seasons; this is the period when most roses fail, and the failure is almost always rooted in drought rather than cold or disease. Once established, most roses — particularly the shrub and species classes — are considerably more drought-tolerant than their reputation suggests.
The fourth requirement is soil of reasonable depth and fertility. The rose is a deep-rooting plant that will, in time, draw sustenance from considerable depths — which is one reason why roses planted decades ago in apparently inhospitable places often perform surprisingly well. In the short term, however, they benefit greatly from the preparation described below.
Part Two: Soil Preparation and Planting
Preparing the Ground
Good soil preparation is the single most important investment the rose gardener makes, and the most frequently skipped. It is not possible to compensate retrospectively for inadequate preparation with feeding and spraying; the foundation, once laid, is what the plant will grow on for the next twenty years.
Begin by digging the planting area to a depth of at least forty-five centimetres — two spade depths. This is more than most gardeners instinctively attempt, and more than seems strictly necessary, but the rose’s inclination to put down deep roots makes it worthwhile. At the same time, remove any perennial weed roots — couch grass, bindweed, ground elder — with thoroughness, since once a rose is established these weeds become almost impossible to eradicate without disturbing the plant.
Incorporate generous quantities of well-rotted organic matter — garden compost, farmyard manure, mushroom compost — into the backfill. This serves three purposes: it improves the drainage of heavy soils and the moisture retention of light ones; it feeds the developing root system; and it encourages the soil biology on which healthy plant growth depends. A bucketful of organic matter per square metre, worked into the lower third of the dig, is a reasonable minimum.
If the pH of the soil is unknown, test it before planting. Roses prefer a pH of between 6.0 and 6.5 — slightly acid. Soils that are more acid than this can be adjusted with lime; those that are more alkaline may be improved with sulphur and generous additions of organic matter, though persistently chalky soils present a challenge that no amount of amendment will entirely resolve.
Beware of rose sickness — the soil exhaustion that affects ground in which roses have grown for many years. A new rose planted into soil that has previously grown roses for a decade or more will almost invariably fail to establish well, even if the old plant appeared healthy. The causes are not entirely understood, but the remedy is either to exchange the top forty-five centimetres of soil for fresh soil from another part of the garden, or to choose a different site. This is more than mere convention; it is genuine botanical necessity.
Bare-Root vs. Container-Grown
Roses are sold in two principal forms: bare-root, available from late autumn to early spring when the plant is dormant, and container-grown, available throughout the year.
The bare-root rose is superior in almost every respect. It is cheaper, typically better-grown, and establishes more quickly in its new position. The act of buying and planting bare-root roses between November and March — unpacking a bundle of seemingly lifeless sticks and placing them in the ground with the confidence that they will, in six months’ time, produce flowers of considerable beauty — is one of the acts of horticultural faith that the garden periodically demands. It is invariably rewarded.
Container-grown roses are more convenient — available in flower, easy to impulse-purchase, possible to plant at any time of year — but they have disadvantages. They are often pot-bound, with roots circling the container in patterns that must be carefully teased out before planting. They have sometimes been grown in peat-free compost that does not replicate the garden soil environment, and they may take a full season to establish the root system that a bare-root plant develops in its first winter.
When planting either type, the bud union — the swollen join between rootstock and scion, visible as a slight thickening just above the roots — should be positioned just below the soil surface in most temperate climates. This encourages the plant to develop its own roots directly from the scion, reducing the likelihood of rootstock suckers and improving long-term vigour.
Water in thoroughly after planting, and mulch to a depth of seven or eight centimetres with well-rotted organic matter, keeping the mulch clear of the stems to prevent disease. Then, for the most part, leave the plant to get on with the business of establishment. Resist the impulse to intervene.
Part Three: Feeding
The rose is a hungry plant, and consistent feeding over the growing season produces a markedly better performance than neglect, however excellent the initial soil preparation. A simple but reliable programme is as follows.
In late February or early March, as pruning is completed, apply a balanced rose fertiliser according to the manufacturer’s instructions, working it lightly into the soil surface around the plant. The proprietary rose fertilisers — Toprose, Vitax Q4, and similar formulations — are designed to provide the combination of nutrients that roses require in appropriate proportions.
A second application in mid-June, after the first flush of flowers, stimulates the production of the second and subsequent flushes that the repeat-flowering classes are capable of. Do not feed after the end of July: late feeding produces soft, disease-susceptible growth that does not harden sufficiently before the frosts.
A mulch of well-rotted farmyard manure applied in autumn or late winter supplements the manufactured fertiliser programme and does something no bag of granules can do: it feeds the soil biology, improving structure, drainage, and moisture retention over years of application. The rose garden that has been mulched generously for a decade is a different proposition from one that has been fed only from a bag.
Foliar feeding — liquid fertilisers applied to the leaves — has its advocates and is not without merit as an emergency measure for ailing plants or as a supplement in periods of drought when root uptake is compromised. It should not, however, replace a sound programme of soil feeding; the root system is the primary means by which a rose absorbs nutrition, and supporting it is always the priority.
Part Four: Pruning
Pruning is the aspect of rose cultivation most surrounded by mythology and most likely to cause unnecessary anxiety. The principles are not complex, and a clear understanding of what pruning is intended to achieve makes the practice considerably less alarming.
The purposes of pruning are three: to remove dead, diseased, and damaged wood; to open the plant to light and air, reducing the conditions in which fungal disease flourishes; and to stimulate the production of vigorous new growth on which the best flowers are carried. These purposes apply to every class of rose, though the timing and extent of pruning varies significantly between them.
Hybrid Teas and Floribundas
The conventional advice for hybrid teas and floribundas is to prune in late winter or very early spring — the traditional instruction to prune when forsythia flowers is a reasonable guide, though the more reliable indicator is the swelling of the rose’s own buds. In the United Kingdom this typically falls between late February and mid-March, varying by region and season.
The technique is to reduce the main stems to between twenty and forty centimetres from the base for a hybrid tea — cutting harder produces fewer but larger blooms; cutting more lightly produces more stems of somewhat smaller flowers. For floribundas, slightly lighter pruning maintains the bushy, cluster-forming habit that is the class’s chief virtue.
Always cut to an outward-facing bud — one pointing away from the centre of the plant — at an angle that slopes away from the bud to prevent water sitting on the cut. Use clean, sharp secateurs throughout; crushing cuts from blunt blades create entry points for disease. The quality of one’s secateurs matters.
Remove completely any stems that are crossing or rubbing, and cut back to the base any that are obviously much older and woodier than the main framework. The goal is a plant with an open centre and young, vigorous framework stems capable of carrying a full season’s growth.
English and Modern Shrub Roses
The David Austin English roses and the broader class of modern shrub roses are frequently over-pruned by gardeners accustomed to hybrid teas, reducing them to the stumps appropriate for that class rather than allowing them to develop the arching, graceful habit that is much of their beauty.
For most English roses, the appropriate approach is to reduce the overall height of the plant by roughly one-third in late winter, removing any dead or unproductive wood and lightly trimming any stems that have become excessively long or are breaking the desired shape. Older stems — those more than three years old, recognisable by their darker bark and reduced vigour — can be removed entirely to encourage the production of new basal growth.
Some of the more vigorous varieties — ‘Gertrude Jekyll’, ‘The Generous Gardener’, ‘Constance Spry’ (which flowers only once) — can be grown as short climbers if allowed to build their framework over a period of years, and respond to a quite different treatment in that case: the removal of old wood and the training of new growth to fill the structure, rather than the reduction of the plant to a bush.
Climbing Roses
Climbing roses require the most patient and considered pruning of all the classes, and the most common error is to do too little rather than too much. A climber left to its own devices for several years will produce most of its flowers at the top of its structure, where the oldest and most unproductive wood has accumulated, while the base becomes a tangle of bare stems.
The principle of climbing rose pruning is the renewal of old wood. Each year, after flowering, remove two or three of the oldest main stems entirely — cutting to the base — and train the vigorous new growth that arises from the base to replace them. Shorten the lateral shoots that arise from the main framework — the side-shoots on which the flowers are carried — to two or three buds. The result, built up over several years, is a plant with a framework of main stems of different ages, producing flowering laterals at every level.
For once-flowering climbers and ramblers, the appropriate time to undertake this renewal pruning is immediately after flowering in July. For repeat-flowering climbers, late winter or early spring is the conventional time, though light deadheading and tidying during the growing season is beneficial.
Old Roses and Species
The once-flowering old roses — gallicas, albas, damasks — require the least pruning of any class and are most often over-managed rather than under-managed. Their flowering is on wood produced in the previous season; hard pruning in winter removes this flowering wood and reduces the display. For most old roses, an annual tidy after flowering — shortening overlong shoots, removing dead wood, shaping the plant — is entirely sufficient. Many will manage perfectly well with little or no pruning for years at a time.
Species roses, and particularly the larger-growing ones, are best treated as landscape shrubs: they may be left unpruned indefinitely, or lightly shaped to maintain their allotted space, but they resent the kind of systematic reduction appropriate for hybrid teas.
Part Five: Disease Management
Rose disease is the subject most likely to discourage the beginning rose grower, and it deserves a candid assessment. The three principal fungal diseases — blackspot, powdery mildew, and rose rust — are real, can be disfiguring, and are not always entirely preventable. But they are also considerably more manageable than is sometimes suggested, and the conditions under which they flourish are, to a significant extent, within the gardener’s control.
Blackspot — Diplocarpon rosae — is the most common and most troubling of the three. It manifests as dark spots with yellow halos on the leaves, eventually causing defoliation if unchecked. It is spread by water splashed from infected leaves onto healthy ones, which is why good air circulation (which dries leaves quickly) and avoiding overhead watering are genuine preventives rather than mere convention. Infected fallen leaves should be collected and disposed of — not composted, which may perpetuate the disease.
Variety selection is the most powerful tool available for blackspot control. The range of disease resistance among rose varieties is enormous, and the difference between a variety susceptible to blackspot and one genuinely resistant to it is the difference between a plant that requires frequent spraying to remain presentable and one that may go through an entire season without any visible sign of disease. Before purchasing any rose, consulting an independent assessment of its disease resistance — the trials conducted by the Royal Horticultural Society and the American Rose Society provide reliable data — is time well spent.
Powdery mildew — the white powdery coating that appears on young growth particularly in warm, dry weather — is associated with drought stress, poor air circulation, and the production of soft growth stimulated by late or excessive feeding. All three of these conditions are manageable.
Rose rust, which produces orange pustules on the undersides of leaves, is less universally common than blackspot but more alarming in appearance. It responds to the same cultural practices that address blackspot: good air circulation, the removal and disposal of infected material, and the selection of resistant varieties.
The role of chemical controls — fungicide sprays — has contracted as the number of products approved for garden use has decreased, and this is not entirely unwelcome. A garden grown on principles of good soil biology, appropriate variety selection, and sound cultural practice will rarely need spraying, and the effort invested in those upstream practices is more rewarding than repeated recourse to the spray bottle.
Part Six: Varieties Worth Growing
The following selection is not exhaustive but represents varieties with well-established reputations for garden performance, disease resistance, and beauty of flower.
Rosa gallica var. officinalis — the Apothecary’s Rose, grown since the thirteenth century. Crimson-magenta, powerfully fragrant, flowers once in June with great abandon. Among the most disease-resistant of all roses. Spreads modestly by suckering to form a colony of considerable character.
Rosa glauca — grown primarily for its extraordinary pewter-grey foliage with a purple tint, which provides one of the finest foliage contrasts in the garden. The small pink flowers are charming but secondary; the hips that follow are decorative. Almost entirely disease-free.
‘Gertrude Jekyll’ (David Austin, 1986) — among the most reliably excellent of the English roses, producing large, deeply cupped flowers of a warm, glowing pink with a powerful and unmistakably old-rose fragrance. Strong, disease-resistant, and willing to be grown as a short climber.
‘Boscobel’ (David Austin, 2012) — salmon-coral flowers of refined form, carried on a compact, upright plant. Among the most disease-resistant of the Austin roses and one of the most free-flowering.
‘Scepter’d Isle’ (David Austin, 1996) — soft pink flowers of exquisite shallow-cupped form, with a myrrh fragrance of unusual clarity. More compact than many English roses, admirably suited to smaller gardens.
‘Veilchenblau’ — a rambler of exceptional character, producing clusters of small, semi-double flowers in a violet-purple that fades to grey-lilac in the sun. Flowers once in great profusion. No fragrance to speak of, but visually unlike any other rose.
‘Madame Alfred Carrière’ — a climbing rose of nineteenth-century breeding and enduring quality, producing blush-white, lightly fragrant flowers on a vigorous, arching plant that tolerates north-facing walls better than almost any other climbing rose. Repeat-flowering, reliably good. One of those roses that, having grown well, never seems to fail.
Rosa rugosa ‘Alba’ — white, single flowers of great simplicity, followed by substantial red hips in autumn. The crinkled, disease-free foliage is distinctive throughout the season; the fragrance is among the finest of any rose. Tolerates poor soils, coastal conditions, and light shade with equanimity.
‘The Generous Gardener’ (David Austin, 2002) — a climbing English rose of the most beautiful character: soft pink flowers with a water lily quality, delicate fragrance, and excellent disease resistance. One of the finest climbers introduced in recent decades.
‘Tuscany Superb’ — a gallica of the deepest crimson-maroon, the petals surrounding a boss of golden stamens with a simplicity that no modern breeding has quite equalled. Flowers once; is worth growing for those flowers alone.
Part Seven: The Long View
The rose garden, unlike the annual border or the vegetable plot, is a commitment across years and decades rather than a single season. This is both its challenge and its deepest reward. A well-grown rose, established in good soil and tended with consistent attention, will improve for the first five to seven years of its life, reaching its prime at a stage when many gardeners have begun to take it for granted. Old roses in particular — those pre-dating the modern era — can be genuinely ancient: plants that have flowered in the same position for a century or more, outlasting the gardeners who planted them and the fashions that briefly superseded them.
The patience that roses require is, in the end, the quality they most reward. The gardener who plants a climbing rose against a new wall and prunes it patiently for five years, building the framework, resisting the temptation to cut it back hard when it seems unruly, will eventually stand before something of genuine beauty — a plant that has grown into the wall, become part of the architecture, softened and adorned the stone in a way that nothing else can.
It is a common observation among experienced rose growers that the more one knows about roses, the more one appreciates how much more there is to know. This is true of most serious horticultural subjects. It should be understood not as a discouragement to the beginner but as an assurance: this is a subject that will repay a lifetime’s attention, and that remains interesting long after the basic principles have been mastered.
Plant a rose. Prepare the soil properly. Prune it with confidence each February. Feed it in spring and again after the first flowering. Then give it the one thing that no book can substitute for — time — and see what it becomes.