Rose

Name: Hybrid Rose, Tea Rose, Rose
Scientific Name: Rose
Family: rosaceae

Soil: A mix of gardening soil and the native sandy soil.
Sun: They love sun. However, too much of the southwestern hot sun can burn all the flowers as well as leaves.
Water: During the summer, I water them according to the local watering schedule: three days a week using drip system as well as splashing them down with water hose once a while.
Fertilizer: I use Safe Rose Food. During flowering season, I also give them bloom booster fertilizer.
Care: Keeping the bush trimmed is a must. Clipping off the dead flowers gives the plant more energy to grow more flowers. Cutting off dead branches and keeping their surroundings clear helps prevent disease. I often find their young juicy leaves are a target of insects. I spray them with mild insecticide to keep the bugs away.
Tips: Roses can be easily propagated from cuttings. Simply cut off a small branch, a hard and wooden branch instead of a young sprouting branch, with less than three pairs of developed leaves. Wet the end and dip it in root stimulating enzymes, then put it in moist soil. The other way to propagate is air laying (for more information about air laying, see peach). I found cutting is much easier.

Description:

I used mostly native sandy soil for my roses. I found it has really good drainage as well as the ability to prevent a lot of fungal diseases. First, I dig a hole about under three feet wide and about two feet deep. After dumping some top soil and mixing it in with the sand, I put the rose bush in it and filled the hole 1/3 of the way up with water. As I have found out, this initial watering is very important. It softens the sandy soil around so the young roots can grow in it before it can reach for more underground moisture. Then I covered the roots with the mixture of top soil and sand. Finally I covered it with a layer of top soil and mulch it with some dry pine needles (I found it very useful in retaining water as well as keeping some pests out).

With fewer pest infestations and less fungus-borne disease, roses grow rather well here in southwest. During early spring, new leaves and buds start to form. Throughout the spring, they bloom profusely in various colors. This is the best time to enjoy my roses because the colors are vivid and the flowers are large. My Don Juan red roses bloom in such profusion that the whole wall seems red. They continue to flower in summer, however, because the heat and the intensity of sun light, most flowers were badly sun burned before they could open. The opened ones are much smaller in size and shortly after they have opened, they turned into crispy paper like dried flowers. I remove them immediately so young leaves can form. If it weren’t for this, roses could be the perfect outdoor flower here.