3 Easy Care Roses

White and Yellow Lady Banks Rose

Now if you have a place with room to grow, lets say an eyesore you'd like to obscure, or an old fence you'd like to cover, the Lady Banks Rose may be a good fit. A vigorouse grower, the Lady Banks Rose, whether its the yellow or white will over you some help. They can cover a sunny corner with lovely miniature double blooms in Spring. Need a perfect climber for an arbor and don't want to wait a long time, then this rose is awesome for that as well. The best feature of a Lady Banks Rose? Disease and pest resistance. The most important thing to do in caring for this rose is to make sure it gets a lot of water in hot weather. Other than that, this one thrives with little assistance.

KnockOut Rose

The Knock Out rose has been around for a while now, and it is a good starter rose for those looking to try their hand at rose growing. While this rose variety is disease resistant and pest resistant, that doesn't mean it can't get diseases or pests. To really get these roses to live up to their name you should water regularly, prune well during the winter, mulch, and feed. Because they can be heavy bloomers they need a good dose of feeding.

Wild and Carpet Roses

One of the best choices for a rose is a wild rose. Now if you're lucky enough to live close to the country where wild roses tend to grow on road sides and abandoned homesteads, then you need not do anything but grab a shovel and dig one up. Wild roses are strong, resilient and can take drought, disease and pests on the chin and comeback fighting. However, if you don't live anywhere like that there are awesome varieties that are just like the beautiful pink wild roses that we've talked about, the Carpet Rose. Carpet roses offer all the vigor and rampant blooming that wild roses offer and are virtually carefree. If you have a fence that needs personality, or a boring spot in your yard the lovely Carpet rose will not let you down. Perfect for those who don't want to have to do a lot of work with roses.

Roses and their care

Dawn Gagnon Photography © 2023

Roses are some of the most beautiful and loved garden favorites in the history of gardening. They require some care to really enjoy their true beauty. It is always a good idea to do a little research on which roses will do the best for you in your zoning area and garden. Another important aspect you must factor in with deciding to grow roses is, what kind of a gardener are you? Are you just starting out? Do you have experience with growing roses? Do you have the time and resources it requires to grow a wide variety of roses? These are very important factors to consider before diving into the gardening world of roses. Here's a few articles that will help you make some of these decisions.

Rose pruning

How to correctly prune your roses

Roses are a beautiful addition to any garden but they do require some maintenance to keep them looking beautiful. In the south our roses start giving us beautiful color a little earlier so knowing the proper time and way to prune them is key to having a great show of color. Proper pruning and dead heading your roses is one part of the maintenance that must be done every season. Here are some basic steps to follow for pruning your roses. See the link at the bottom of this article for information on rose pruning.

Dawn Gagnon Photography © 2023

Disease Resistant roses

The Knock Out Rose

There is one flower that is quite a challenge in most gardens, even in the south, and that is roses. High temperatures, drought, and humid nights, often prove to be the enemy when growing roses. Finding one that is a good fit for your yard is important. The Knockout Rose may the one of the best to meet this challenge. This is a great rose to ease into the rose gardening experience, especially for novice gardeners that are just beginning to get their hands dirty. See the link below for a full write up on the great qualities of the Knockout Rose.

Dawn Gagnon Photography © 2023

Rose Garden Festival

If you love touring rose gardens around the country and love to participate in festival activity, there is a wonderful opportunity annually to visit Orangeburg, South Carolina's Edisto Memorial Gardens which hosts some of the most beautiful rose specimens in the world. This festival is held annually and there is a website to visit in the link below if you'd love to come to the Edisto Memorial Annual Festival of Roses.

How to correctly prune your rose bushes

Photography by Dawn Gagnon

Roses are a beautiful addition to any garden but they do require some maintenance to keep them looking beautiful. Proper pruning and dead heading your roses is one part of the maintenance that must be done every season.

1. Prune your rose in early spring and once all danger of frost has past.

2. Make sure you have clean, sharp by-pass pruners and thick gloves. Some roses like the Joseph Coat are extremely thorny and can really cause a lot of damage to your hands and arms.

3. During the growing season, prune roses by looking for the first set of five leaves where you'll see a leaf bud. Prune just above this bud at a 45 degree angle that will assure the new growth will grow outward from the plant and not inward. This can be done as you dead head your roses.

4. Remove all dead and dying wood and any spindly canes that are less than the diameter of a pencil. Also look for sucker growth. These are canes that shoot out from the base of your plant under the main bud union. The main bud union is where all the main canes of the rose bush emerge from. Anything growing and shooting out from under this is a sucker and should be removed completely.

5. If you have a problem with cane borers, it is suggested that you can cover fresh pruning cuts with basic white school glue to prevent infestation.

6. Once roses go dormant for the year and have been exposed to several hard frosts, cut the rose down to one third of its original size and only leave three to four healthy canes for best results. Add a thick layer of fresh mulch.