There are a myriad of different ways to plant roses. I only know how to successfully plant them where I live in the Pacific Northwest. Here’s a quick list of what we do to help our roses grow successfully.
TLDR
- Wait For the last frost
- Don’t dig a $2 hole for a $50 rose plant
- Amend the soil the rose is going into
- Add biotone to help give your plant the extra boost it needs
- Cover the bud-union
- Water heavily on the first day
- Mist on warm days
THE LAST FROST
“You cant see me I’m invisible” – JACK FROST
Just like the Jack Frost, you cannot see we the last light freeze will be in your area, but you can take a pretty good guess. Almanac.com does a pretty good job of showing you when your last light freeze will be (@ 30% probability). Where we are, the probability of having a last frost occurs in early May. Typically, I wait for late March to begin planting. At this point, the severe freezes are typically behind us and we can begin to make adjustments to our yard. Taking care to avoid a moderate freeze (below 28F) will help newly planted roses thrive.
DIGGING THE RIGHT SIZE HOLE
Where I am at in Battle Ground, WA, there is a LOT of heavy clay soil. So much so, that we gave up on a portion of our backyard because it refused to take amendments. We added bark, we added soil, we regraded the soil, we reseeded grass. All of that to eventually end up covering the area with 1/4 minus rock because we got tired of us and our dogs tracking in thick, thick mud after taking just a few steps outside. What I have learned in working with this soil is that you have to dig a very different kind of hole for your roses. I heard it said at a Fort Vancouver Rose Society (FVRS) meeting that some people spend $50 on a rose, but only dig a $2 hole. Where we live, that is a statement that stands true. I have to dig holes about 2 feet down and about 3 feet wide and work compost into the clay to help break it up. Otherwise, the clay completely drowns the plants in our rainy season and makes water time consuming in the summer when the ground hardens into a giant brick that refuses to take in water unless you water very slowly. I hand water over 100 roses by hand, slowly. It takes about 5-6 hours to do on summer evenings because of how much our soil wants to reject water. I could do a drip system, but then I don’t get to take in a very nice sunset with the smell of roses.
SOIL AMENDMENTS
If you have soil similar to what we have, it will take about 2 years to change the soil composition by adding compost and aerating your lawn. Thus, we highly recommend adjusting the soil composition by premixing compost within a diameter of 3 feet and a depth of about 2 feet BEFORE planting your roses. I typically do it about 2 weeks before to allow settling (with rain) to occur. If you have great soil, you have nothing to worry about! Just throw some Biotone in there and you will watch your rose plant take off! There are many great benefits to amending your soil. Roses thrive in slight acidic soil between 5.5 and 7.0. Anything outside of that range will require some form of amendments. Coffee grounds can help bring the acidity up while adding lime can help bring acidity down. The reason I am a big fan of certified compost is because it contains a high level of essential nutrients from decomposed material, it retains moisture well enough, and has microorganisms that are beneficial to changing soil composition.
BIOTONE
Adding Biotone is a new step for us in the yard, but we have been using mycorrhizae when planting our seedlings in the greenhouse and have found that it has increased the number of successfully germinated seedlings in our growing trays. Have you ever seen a mushroom grow? Well this little organism is a part of the same family; it’s a fungi. These tiny little microorganisms help transport phosphorus directly to the roots of plants in exchange for sugars or fats. This symbiotic relationship can be life or death for some plants like orchids where they are wholly dependent on a specific type of mycorrhizae. Further, Biotone has two species of Endomycorrhiza and five species of Ectomycorrhiza. It also has 6 different types of bacteria and a low dose of fertilizer to help give any plant a gentle push towards success. While roses can get by without adding Biotone in, the success I saw in my greenhouse has me convinced that Biotone is worth its weight in gold. We will see how the generation 1 seedlings respond to it.
COVER THE BUD UNION
Don’t know what this is? Yeah, I didn’t either.. Thanks to the Fort Vancouver Rose Society, I learned… The bud union is where new canes are born. It is the point where your rose plant is joined to the root stock. The graphic below helps to break down the basics of a rose plant. The bud union can be vulnerable to cold winters. This winter saw our temperatures drop to as low as 10 F. Unfortunately, I forgot to cover the bud union of our beautiful, climbing Don Juan and it is now dying back heavily from the frost it was exposed to. Don’t make my mistake and just cover the bud union.
WATER HEAVILY ON DAY ONE
Have you ever played in a full 90 minute soccer game? While the clock is running, you don’t really get water until the halfway mark and the end of the game. New roses are similar to a soccer game. When they get to you they have already finished the first twenty minutes of the game. They are typically a bare root rose that has been transplanted into soil at the nursery destination. Once they get to your home, they are getting close to the half-time whistle and they are thirsty. When you finally plant them in the ground they have run themselves hard and are ready for nutrients and, most importantly, water. As soon as you plant that rose in the ground, I recommend watering for about 5-10 minutes at the base of the rose to really get the soil around the rose nice and wet. This will allow the soil to settle nice and gently around the roots of the plant.
MIST ON WARM DAYS
In spring, temperatures tend to fluctuate and some days can get in the high 70’s. For about the first month, if I get temperatures that high, I like to mist the leaves and stems of the rose to help the plant retain moisture. If the roots are able to take up enough water, the leaves can eventually dry as they evaporate water through the transpiration process. Most often than not, this step is unnecessary, but I have had many seedlings die from high temperatures and I believe the culprit was a high rate of transpiration. This past year, I noticed that I had minimal loss of seedlings and whole plants, which I can attribute to a quick mist on those warmer days.
We hope this information helps you and your roses thrive!