There is still time to plant roses of the likes of hybrid teas and floribundas and any others. This time of year we are optimistic that plantings will turn out well with plenty of beautiful blooms!


Bushes which are bought as bare root plants require a certain procedure in being placed in the soil. As most of us know from attending our meetings and staying awake, roses require a well-aerated, slightly acid (pH6.0-6.5), medium heavy loam with an abundance of organic matter. Sandy soils and clay soils can both be improved by adding a goodly amount of peat moss, leaf mold, well-rotted manure, or compost. Roses, of course, require good drainage and full sun for at least six hours.


We might review the manner in which bareroot roses are planted at our Mills Garden in Thornden Park. Many roses are planted at one time in an almost production line proceeding.


First of all, the bareroot bushes, dormant from long winter storage at a cool temperature, are soaked root-wise in five-gallon buckets of water for at least an hour. Often this water is a solution containing a water-loving polymer capable of taking up many times its own weight in water and available at garden centers. Roots that appear dead, straggly, or broken are pruned.


In the meantime a crew of ardent volunteers is off digging holes in designated beds according to an elaborate map of the entire garden.



Holes are excavated to a depth of 18 inches and almost as wide and close together (2-3 feet between centers). The soil at the Mills Garden is of a good texture from years of careful cultivation with roses since 1924.


Now the planting crew appears with wheelbarrows of materials to be added to the holes. Others are laden with the rose bushes carefully segregated by name to be planted in the designated bed. And someone has unsnarled a lengthy hose and attached it to one of the underground watering outlets.

The bottom of each hole is filled with a liberal offering of peat moss, trowel-fulls of bone meal and rabbit food, and a handful of Epsom salts along with a dormant or semi-dormant rose bush. Peat moss is readily available at garden centers along with bonemeal. Rabbit food, actually pellets of alfalfa leaf meal, can be found at certain farm feed supply stores. Epsom salt is magnesium sulfate and in small amounts is available at drugstores where it is sold as a cathartic but also at certain industrial chemical supply houses, where it is much less expensive

Each hole is half-filled with soil and soaked with water and then filled completely with soil to a level one inch above the bud union. This is the knoblike portion of the stem some one to three inches above the roots where the top growth of the hybridized plant joins the understock (which is of a mundane specie rose that is hardy in our climate. More water sprinkles on to the now-planted rose, and the soil is well settled around the bush. The plant should be hilled up with more soil to protect it until it starts growing. Do not allow the bush to dry out; moisture is essential.







Some of us may purchase in boxes or in 3- to 5-gallon containers roses that are already growing. These are planted directly in a hole somewhat larger than the so-called root ball. If possible, remove the bush from the container or cut numerous slits in the container for the roots to grow into the outside soil.







Note that we add no fertilizer to newly-planted roses other than the organic materials in the bottom of the hole. Remember that the factors controlling the growth of your roses are temperature, sunlight, and sufficient moisture. You cannot control the first two, but you can provide water at the recommended rate of one rainfall inch per each seven days. Water is not only the most important nutrient for growth but necessary for the movement of nutrients through the plant and the maintenance of turgidity.