Many roses, both old and new, are disease resistant and easy to care for. There are many kinds of roses with diverse sizes, shapes, and colors. Many are fragrant. All are beautiful and work well in combination with other plants.

Work lots of organic material (compost) into your soil along with soil conditioner. If you have doubts about drainage, dig a hole large enough to plant your rose, fill it with water, and see how quickly it drains. If the hole has not emptied in an hour, you need to improve the drainage, or your roses will not prosper.

When planting container grown roses, dig a hole at least 11/2 times as wide as the container and ideally twice as wide. Plant the rose to the depth it is in the container. If it is a bare root rose (not in a container) with a graft site (many hybrid teas are grafted), dig a deep enough hole to have the graft at or just below the soil line and wide enough to accommodate the spread-out roots. You will need a mound of soil in the middle of the hole for the rose to sit on. Soak bare root roses overnight before planting. You can trim damaged or extremely long roots before planting. Remember to water and mulch your roses after planting.

Many roses bloom continuously from May until frost. To do this they need lots of nutrients. Any good quality, well-balanced, slow-release fertilizer will do. Fertilize according to directions in the spring and at least once during the summer. Do not feed your roses after mid-August – you want your roses to become dormant for the winter and feeding will promote growth. Remember to water after fertilizing.

Roses need one to two inches of water a week. They prefer not having their leaves get wet when they are watered. Soaker hoses are a practical and efficient way to water roses. Mulching will help with moisture retention.

Roses are prone to the same pests as other flowering shrubs and to a fungus called black spot. Many rose growers look for disease resistant varieties which are plentiful. Good garden hygiene and healthy roses will help prevent problems. Some growers use only organic products or chose not to spray at all. If you choose to spray dormant roses and surrounding soil with lime sulfur (which is organic) during the winter. This will help eradicate fungal spores and prevent black spot during the growing season.

Much has been written about pruning roses. Basically, you want to keep your roses at a size where they bloom freely and yet fit into your garden. However, you need to cut back dead or damaged canes in early spring and whenever else they occur.

Trim your roses back to about three feet if they are very tall or sprawling. Mulch them well. If you have roses with grafts, make sure the graft is well covered with soil and mulch.

During a recent meeting, members of the Asheville Blue Ridge Rose Society were treated to an instructive lesson on pruning roses by John Smith, one of our resident Consulting Rosarians, before heading outside to give the roses in our test garden a rejuvenating prune.

There is nothing more romantic than walking under an arbor or pergola covered in fragrant roses. Or, picture the rose covered cottages of England and New England. Climbing roses can also add a colorful vertical accent to your garden. Here are some tips that will help you get started with your climber.

The care of climbing roses is similar to that of their non-climbing brethren. They need fertilizing and watering and they are susceptible to the same diseases. Pruning is different, however – you still want to remove dead, damaged or diseased canes. But you want to leave the lead canes as long as suits your taste and structure. You can prune back the laterals, however, to keep them in check and to promote re-blooming. For more information about pruning climbing roses, contact your local rose society.

Newcomers to Western North Carolina often wonder how to get their roses ready for winter.  They want to know how far to cut roses back and what winter protection is needed.  The Asheville area is in hardiness Zone 7; some outlying areas or higher elevations are in 6b.  This means that, for Zone 7, we may have temperatures as low as zero, and down to minus 5 in Zone 6b.  But we rarely have temperatures that cold and, if we do, they don’t usually last long.  In fact, our average January high in the Asheville area is in the mid-40s, and the average low is in the upper-20s.

Western North Carolina does get winds in the winter, however, and this is particularly true in the higher elevations.  Winds can be strong enough to damage canes or even uproot roses.

With these facts in mind, here are some simple steps for putting your roses to bed.

• Fall is a good time to obtain a soil test. Many of our soils are acidic; lime takes time to work so many gardeners apply lime in the fall.  A soil test will also tell you how to fertilize your roses in the spring.  Soil test kits are available at your County Extension Office. In Buncombe County, the address is 49 Mt. Carmel Road, Asheville, 28806.  Testing is free from April through November; there is a nominal fee during the other months.
• No matter how warm the fall, no matter what your soil test report, resist the urge to fertilize after mid-to late August.
• Remove dead, damaged, or dying canes as well as any that are crossing other canes and might rub.
• Clean up debris and dead leaves, especially if your roses are prone to black spot.
• Roses in this area can bloom into November.  But usually by December they are going dormant, and it is time to trim them back to 3 or 4 feet, depending on the type of rose.  This light pruning will help prevent wind damage. Hard pruning and shaping of roses in this area is done in the early spring, traditionally when the forsythia blooms.
• Ground cover or short roses don’t need to be cut back.
• You do not want to cut back climbing roses to 3 or 4 feet but you may remove dead, unhealthy, or misdirected canes.  Attach climbers firmly to their support so they will not blow or whip around.
• Own-root roses need routine mulching.  If you already have several inches of mulch in your rose garden, you do not need to mulch again.
• Grafted roses will need the graft protected.  You can tell if a rose is grafted as there is a thickening or knob at the junction of the root stock and graft.  In this area, the graft site is usually slightly above ground level, so it is easy to see.  Cover the graft with a generous layer of soil and/or mulch.
• Container grown roses should be cleaned up and trimmed like other roses.  If you have space, you can store them in your garage, place them against your house or in a sheltered spot.  You can also leave them in place and hope they winter over successfully – this is the only option for very large containers that cannot be moved or if you have too many containers to relocate. Once these chores are done, you can settle back and wait for this winter’s Rose Catalogues!