 |
Rejuvenating RosesKeep your rose bushes in bloom all year long. |
||
|
Small File
|
Large File
|
||
| > Real
Player > Quicktime |
> Real
Player > Quicktime |
||
Transcript: Rejuvenating Roses
Some rose bushes are once-bloomers -- they bloom in the spring and then they don’t bloom again for the rest of the year.Other roses repeat bloom. This Old Blush is a good example of a repeat bloomer. It will continue to produce blooms all through the year. It does a great spring show and a really good fall show too. But you can have blooms all summer if you’ll take care of it.
First of all, you want to take these old blooms that are faded and cut them away from the plant. You want to trim the stem back to about where there’s the first leaflet with about five leaves on it. There’s nothing magic about that -- you can cut a little further or a little less -- but just continue to prune and deadhead the old blooms off the top of the plant.
Sometimes the bush will attempt to produce rosehips for those spent blooms, and that just takes energy away from the bush that could actually be directed toward more blooms.
The next step is to supply some fertilizer to give it a little bit of vigor. I like to use a product that’s a turf fertilizer, something with a 3-1-2 or a 4-1-2 ratio of nutrients. Just sprinkle it around the bush out as far as the branch spread -- a cup or two is plenty for a bush -- and then work it lightly into the soil surface. Then water it in well. Your bush will take off with new vigor and a whole new wonderful blush of blooms.
By taking care of your bushes like this you can make them bloom all year. This is especially important in late August for preparing for the fall bloom. In fact, at that time you may want to cut the bush back by about a third to really invigorate it and bring on a great fall show.
download
For comments and questions about this site please contact
coleena@tamu.edu
or e-gregory@tamu.edu
Last Updated:
July 6, 2006