Next Year’s Roses

Water your roses during the hot summer to keep them happy and blooming!

A month ago I recommended deadheading re-blooming roses to promote another cycle of blooms. Now, as the end of June approaches is the time to deadhead one-blooming roses, not to extend the season, but to support formation of the greatest number of new buds for the next season.

Roses respond predictably to seasonal attention.

One of my roses that should be deadheaded now is the prolific producer, Rosa mulligani, shown during its recent peak of bloom.

Rosa Mulligani

If my schedule includes deadheading this plant during the next couple weeks, it will provide an even greater cascade of blossoms display next year.

This time of the year is also a good time to contemplate roses in your landscape.

The traditional time for such reflection is late fall and early winter when bare-root roses appear in local garden centers. These are often bleak days for the landscape when avid gardeners hunger for a burst of color in the landscape and respond eagerly to the enticements of dozens of rose photographs.

That’s a good time to add roses to your garden, but not the best time to re-think the role of roses in your landscape.

Many gardens include three or more (perhaps many more!) shrub roses, clustered primarily for ease of maintenance. In other words, there is a rose garden.

The most popular varieties are hybrid tea roses, which cross Rebloomers and tea-scented roses from China, and modern English roses, which cross old roses with hybrid teas. The English roses, notably those by David Austin Roses in western England’s Shropshire County, combine several of the most appealing qualities of roses: hardiness, durability, and fragrance.

The gardener cannot go far wrong by collecting English roses. If you are enjoying your rose garden as it is now, that’s fine.

Still, consider fresh looks at your garden to explore new ideas and your evolving priorities. This approach can inspire creative challenges and new interest in gardening.

Here are a few possibilities.

  • Clustered plants. A popular recommendation is to plant roses in groups of three, to increase visual impact. This approach counters the familiar use of single specimens, which favors variety over garden design.
  • A color-oriented theme. This could be a single color, e.g., white, different shades of a single hue, e.g., pink, or a combination of two or three colors that work well together. A bi-color combination of climbers on a trellis or arch can be striking.
  • Touring rose varieties. Roses have been grown in temperate climates throughout the world for over 5,000 years. A long list of interesting varieties awaits your exploration. Begin an absorbing online research by entering “Wikipedia garden roses.” You could soon be on your way to comparing the common and uncommon varieties in your garden.
  • Combining 0nce-bloomers and re-bloomers. The once-bloomers introduce a different rhythm to the rose season. Some are single-flowered, with just five or seven petals, offering an entirely different look in comparison to the lush varieties with as many as 100 petals. Sometimes, less is more!

We have access to many fascinating varieties within the genus Rosa, even before exploring the ever-expanding universe of hybrids. Your gardening experiences can be enriched by adventuring through the genus.

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