Indoor Roses
Roses are one of the most beautiful and rewarding flowers.
From planting to pruning, a beautiful rose bush gives a certain sense of pride and accomplishment. However, some people are unable to maintain a garden either because they cannot get out into the sun, or because they simply do not have the room.
For these people, indoor roses are a good option for enjoying the beauty & perfume of the flowers while avoiding the hassle of maintaining a whole garden.
Growing roses indoors can be a difficult task if you’re not sure what you are doing.
Some varieties grow better than others, and some homes, apartments, or condos are better suited for indoor growing. The first step is to pick the right variety of rose. Many can grow indoors but since the size of these bushes is so large, most experts recommend using miniature roses for indoor growing.
Like outdoor roses, indoor roses require three main components to grow properly and flourish. Adequate sunlight is vital to the health of any plant whether indoors or out. Find the window in your home that will provide the required amount of sunlight for your flower.
Usually a west facing window is best for this; however, you may find, depending on where you live, that a south facing window provides better light.
Once you have found the appropriate window for your indoor roses, you need to consider the type of soil you will use.
Drainage is one of the biggest problems here. If your soil does not have enough drainage capability for the type of rose you are trying to grow, your plant may become sick or die.
For instance, if you were growing desert roses, a mixture of sand and gravel would probably be the best type of soil for you to use because these flowers do not need a lot of water and cannot stand to sit in saturated soil for extended periods. A little research and a couple of questions to the nursery where you buy your indoor roses will help you to decide which kind of soil mixture is perfect for your particular plant.
No matter how much sun and the type of soil you use, your plant will not bloom and flourish if you do not provide the right amount of nutrients. Some suppliers of fertilizer make special rose food; however, you want to be sure that your specific type of rose will flourish with this type of food.
Most people just opt to use a generic, multi-purpose fertilizer, and sometimes alternate it with a flowering fertilizer.
Whatever kind you use, don’t over fertilize your indoor roses as this can harm the plant, causing excessive amounts of certain nutrients, and subjecting your plant to disease or death.
Many people have found growing roses indoors will shorten the life of the plant and are not able to get their plant to bloom more than once. Using the proper fertilizer and soil, along with the right amount of water and sunlight can help you to have a wonderful blooming plant…but make sure to allow for a dormant season as well.
Most roses require cold temperatures and time with no active blooms to recharge and get ready for the next growing season. Indoor roses often have these same requirements and will not bloom without their rest.
Find a cool place in your home and do not fertilize your plant during the winter months, to allow the plant the rest it needs and you should be able to get it to bloom again the next year.
Whether you’re growing roses indoors or out, they will need some attention and effort from you. Roses are possibly the most difficult flower to grow and for some people bringing them indoors can make the task even more difficult. Learning how to take care of your plant will make it easier for it to bloom inside your home as well as out.
Pruning Rose Bushes
The subject of pruning rose bushes seems to be one that gives nightmares to most non-professional gardeners.
This is strange in a way, when you consider the fact that pruning roses is part of maintaining a healthy growth.
However, it is hardly surprising when you realize that different kinds of roses need pruning at different times of the year, which can be quite confusing to someone who is new at gardening.
Plus, when you consider the various varieties of roses, and differences in the care they need, and pruning rose bushes can seem like a bed of thorns.
If you are one of those people for whom pruning roses is like embarking on a journey to a foreign land without a map, here’s some help.
First of all, take a deep breath and relax.
Pruning rose bushes really isn’t as difficult as you think. All you need to remember is why you need to do it, and a few guidelines for how.
Why does one need to prune roses, one wonders. After all, no one prunes them in the wild and they still seem to grow well enough.
But think about it.
Do wild roses ever have bumper blooms? Do they last very long? Are they very healthy?
The whole point of cultivating plants is to improve over what they manage in the wild.
When you bring up roses in your garden, invest time and energy and emotion into seeing them grow up healthy and strong and blooming, you would want to do everything you can to help them along on the path to health.
And pruning rose bushes is an essential part of their general upkeep because -
• It encourages growth
• It can be used to shape the bushes into pleasant shapes
• It thins out extra growth so that all parts of the bush get air
• It prevents the plant from getting too crowded with its own branches
Try not to worry too much about pruning rose bushes, just get yourself the right tools, and give it a go. It is almost impossible to kill a rose bush by pruning it wrong.
So pick up a pair of sharp shears, make sure they are not too long, pick out a pair of hardy gloves, and begin cutting.
There are a number of things one must keep in mind -
• Always use sharp clean tools to avoid jagged cuts and infection
• Always prune from the base up
• Cut away dead, dying, or diseased canes and branches
• Cut away thin, weak branches
• Remove extra foliage
• Thin out the middle of the bush so that there is more breathing space
• Cut away as much as a quarter of the thickness of the bush
• Always cut above an outward growth bud
• Make sure the cut slopes away from the bud so that water does not drip into the bud and rot it
• Prune shrub roses and bush roses in mid spring
• Prune rambler roses in late summer
• Prune climbing roses in autumn
• Prune ground cover roses in spring
You can, of course find out much more about pruning rose bushes, if you want to, at your local nursery or at the library. Just remember, it is necessary, and it isn’t all that hard
Taking Care of Roses in Winter
Taking care of roses in winter… when the cold winter winds begin to blow, and frost and snow threatens, most warm weather creatures feel the pinch.
Don’t let your beloved roses feel the brunt of old man winter without any protection.
Taking care of roses in winter is extremely important for any gardener hoping to have the plants weather the tough season well.
After all, you wouldn’t venture out into the freezing cold without protection, would you? So how can you leave your roses to fend for themselves, without making sure they are well protected, without taking care of roses?
Don’t leave it until the last minute to start taking care of your roses and making preparations for winter. Always remember that it is better to prepare early rather than leave it too late.
Start your winter preparations a month and a half in advance of the expected frosts.
Begin taking care of roses in winter by completing the winter pruning, especially if you plan to use Styrofoam or plywood protectors.
Make sure the plant is cut back so that it is small enough to be covered by the protector, and tie it up with a synthetic string, before you cover it, to ensure that the string does not rot away during the winter.
Pull off and take away old petals, dead and dying leaves, and debris left behind from cutting and pruning, to the trash bin.
If you leave them around the base, they will provide a warm and hospitable home for rats and fungal diseases over the cold winter months, and do your roses no good at all.
Part of taking care of roses in winter is to make sure not to add these things to the compost heap.
They may carry some rose diseases that would survive the winter and would immediately affect the roses as soon as you use the infected compost.
Bring in extra soil, to add a layer over the roots.
This will keep the soil in the immediate neighborhood of the roots warmer, preventing the roots from being frozen.
If your roses are outdoors, and in a place likely to be affected by the sharp winds, you can include cutting the tall canes back to a medium height and tying their tips together to the taking care of roses list.
This will prevent excess buffeting and pulling saving the roots from being damaged, as well as prevent direct breakage of the canes.
Taking care of roses in winter, in this case would also include dormant spraying the roses when you do your final fall cleanup.
At the time, remove old mulch which can cause infection and pest infestation.
Rotting mulch is a prime source of trouble over the winter months. Get rid of all the old mulch, and apply new mulch only where absolutely necessary.
You can also look into other methods of taking care of roses in winter like trenching or constructing rose boxes.
If You’re a Hopeless Romantic, Show How Much You Care for Roses
Possessing a great passion to care for roses is one of the most rewarding & fulfilling emotions anyone can experience.
Of all the flowers in all the gardens around the world, nothing compares with the scent and beauty of a rose garden overflowing with flowers.
And nothing can take the place of a single rose handed to a love one… handing her a Petunia just wouldn’t cut it!!
It’s a shame that many think it’s a difficult task to care for roses.
Many rose lovers will agree with that but for those who take the time & make the effort to learn the best way to care for roses, they realize that a rose garden is just the same as any other garden in terms of maintenance.
They do however require extra care & a few tricks to maintain maximum beauty and there are some shortcuts and tricks you can implement to keep them at their peak.
Water is All Important.
It’s common knowledge that plants need water above all other requirements. Roses are definitely no exception to this, and plenty of water will help them bloom and remain extremely healthy.
The typical amount of water your rose garden needs is an inch every week, and roses have deep roots that need to be watered so we must make sure there’s enough water to reach that far down in the soil.
Fortunately, roses are tempered against dry spells, as their deep roots can pull moisture up from the subsoil even in instances of surface dryness.
This benefit actually makes caring for roses easier than many similar plants. If you water the roots correctly, they’ll be more likely to grow even deeper.
However, if they are only lightly watered, particularly if infrequently, it will promote shallow roots as they don’t need to go deep to find water.
This will have the effect of eliminating the plant’s ability to persevere amid drought conditions, as their roots cannot reach the subsoil.
Your roses also need to be fertilized but it must be done correctly.
If your rose garden has good enough soil, the majority of your plants can endure years of not being fed, organisms in the soil produce and provide nutrients on which plants feed.
If you use artificial fertilizer, you might kill off those helpful organisms, and give the plants a dependency on the fertilizer, requiring consistent feeding as a result.
As an alternative to care for roses, apply slow release fertilizer as the plants start to come out of their dormancy period in the spring. Add a little more fertilizer to the soil once the blooms disappear and they start caching energy, & lay off fertilizing after that until the middle of summer.
You can use either inorganic or organic fertilizers in your rose garden according to your preference, but keep in mind the organic variety can help nourish those beneficial organisms in the soul, which will keep it fertile long-term.
If you choose inorganic fertilizer, look for 5-10-5 or 4-8-4 varieties.
It’s also very crucial to prune your roses, which is typically done in spring, when the plant emerges from its winter dormancy.
Prune at this juncture in order to get all the dead, broken or diseased wood off the plant, which will also allow the plant to be properly aerated.
You can also prune to shape the plant, which typically needs to happen after your rose has finished blooming. If you prune the flowers themselves, the rose will grow, and removal of the flower buds can assist a new plant in establishing itself.
To really care for roses does take a great deal of patience and effort however the results are truly worth it in the form of the delightful sight of a rose garden overflowing with beautiful roses.
In the world of gardening, the satisfaction you get from displaying your hard work is unequalled.
Grow the Roses That YOU Love
How does one start to grow the roses he or she wants?
For anyone who has any sort of hobby, he or she will always have some sort of favorite, a preference of sorts, over other choices.
A camera collector may collect all kinds of cameras, but he or she may favor a certain brand over the others. A car collector can also favor a certain decade for vintage cars as well.
Same goes for those into rose gardening, he or she may favor certain types of over the others.
For rose gardeners, there is one thing they can do to ensure they get what they want. All they have to do is grow the roses they prefer; that way, they won’t be disappointed.
However, if things don’t go the way they planned, they would have no one to blame but themselves.
So in effect, a rose gardener who fails to grow the roses he or she prefers would be sparing their family and friends their wrath over whom to blame. Good for the gardener, better for their closest kin.
Whatever a rose gardener may choose to grow, be it mini roses or the ever-hardy Knockouts, he or she must know how to raise them first.
If you are starting out, or just want to try out a different breed of rose, make sure you find out all you can about the particular plant you wish to grow.
The type you choose should be feasible according to your environment. If you live in cold winter areas, better to stick to the ones that can with stand the cold.
If you live in a scorching desert, choose the type that best suits the heat – a desert rose perhaps? But no matter what kind of rose you choose, make sure you are prepared to see it through.
Make sure you know what you are getting into and not just jumping in blindly.
These plants come in many shapes, colors and sizes, and not all are treated the same. Some are hardier than others in the winter, some flourish in the tropics, while some may need special care and attention. Research all you can about what you wish to grow.
To grow the roses you want, it’s not enough to just want it. You have to work for it.
Let’s assume your roses are growing very well and they’re about to flower. Good for you and congratulations are in order.
However, just because you made your plants bloom doesn’t mean your work is done. You can’t just pick the flowers randomly without any thought or planning.
Some plants require that you cut them in a certain way, at a certain time of the day. Others may need to be cut at the base of the stem; some should be cut from the nodes.
It all depends what kind of rose you are growing.
If you are experienced in rose gardening techniques, you would understand what I mean, however, if you have no idea what I am talking about, it’s time to go do some research.
You see, if you start pruning without thinking, you may end up with a plant that won’t bloom ever again, or maybe even condemn it to death.
It’s best to know the hows and whys to make sure your plants keep on blooming.
As with all things in life, knowing is half the battle. They say knowledge is key, and they’re right. . If you are passionate enough and dedicated enough, you will have no problem.
The key to growing the roses YOU want to grow and keep them blooming and flourishing, is to take the time to learn everything you can about these stunning plants.
