How to Care for a Rose Bush

Hi I'm Stan DeFreitas, Mr. Green Thumb. How do you care for a rose bush? Well there's a number of things that you need to remember. One is light level. Most roses need about six hours of bright sun a day so don't put them in that dark corner because your plant is going to be on that one bean a day diet and it won't flower very well. Make sure you have got bright sun. Make sure you plant it into a good soil. I often say make a $10 hole for your $8 rose bush and by that I mean add peat moss, add black cow manure, add a lot of organic matter to the existing sight. I usually add some fertilizer and I usually work the dirt up. I usually take the dirt and really kind of lighten it up. I put my peat, I put my perlite, I put my builder's sand in there, usually about a third, a third, a third and I really incorporate it into a nice homogenized mix. When you plant your rose bush if it is kind of root bound which they often are, I'd go in and gently take your trowel and actually kind of just score through some of the area and that way those roots will come back out into the existing soil. To improve your soil plant them in a bright sunny spot, make sure you get prepared to fertilize them on about a monthly basis and also make sure that you trim them back from time to time so that they stay within bounds. Usually go back to about a three to five leaflet on them stem so you'll get better branching out. If you fertilizer them correctly and you water them on a well pretty regular basis normally on roses you are going to have to water once or twice a week at least and that means a good thorough soaking that goes down through the base. Also make sure you fertilize them on probably an every two to four week basis depending on the season and where you are at and I would also like to mulch roses. I would like to change that mulch out about every growing season. If you do all those things you should have a good looking plant. For askmrgreenthumb.com, I'm Stan DeFreitas.