How to Grow Roses at Home

Chris Burrous: Everyone’s a farmer when it comes to their own backyard; try these tips for doing it home grown.
Kristine Hanson: A rose is a rose is a rose, whether it’s a tree, ground cover, bush or hedge. It’s no wonder these are romantic poeticized flowers. They grow everywhere including Alaska, there a colorful mainstay to any garden. And when our California heat and temperatures start to climb, these roses take off.
Roses come in all different shape and sizes and this is the most classic bush form, this is a hybrid tea, a single rose on a stem. This is what we would put in a vase and what our florists put in arrangements. And then there’s a Floribunda or Grandiflora and these are the more bang for your buck type rose, as you can see a single stem, but a cluster of roses on the bush. And then, one of my favorites, miniatures, I plant these in front of the rose garden. We’re talking about miniature little buds, the plant itself can become very large, but the buds themselves will stay small, so not a miniature plant itself. And these, you remember these going into the back of your grandmother’s yard, these are a shrub rose and they can be placed anywhere, just let them go and they’ll just take off and somebody will come up and say what is that gorgeous plant in the back of your yard? It’s a shrub rose. And then, climbers, these are fabulous and because it’s a misnomer they don’t actually attach to the house. Instead they need a little support but they don’t attach. And as a result they’re safe for building your trellis or your home.
To keep roses happy during the summer months, you need to water consistently and do something called dead heading. That’s a way we trim and tidy up our bushes. Well, it’s also a gardener’s way of tricking Mother Nature into producing more flower blooms. Roses come with three and five set leaflets, we’re going to’ take a pair of sharp pruning shears and we’re going to’ cut above the five set leaflet in a downward stroke; once the rose is removed you can drop it into a bucket. Now you can do the whole plant at one time, or cut them as they fade- that’s what I do then bring them indoors and then you’ve always got a little extra color left on the bush.
Well you can plant your rose in a pot or in the garden, but whatever location you pick you want to get 6 hours of sunlight a day, now we’re planting in the shade today and I’ve put on my gloves - we’re going to’ knock the rose bush out of the pot, by that I mean you tap the pot once we’ve watered the plant really well and it will slip right out. Now this time of year, the nursery has done most of the work for you, as you can see there’s a soil lining and you’re just going to match that up- we’ve put a little soil at the bottom of the pot, hold it there and fill in around the edges you can loosen up the pot line just a little bit as you put it in. The next step once you’ve filled this, fill this just a little bit full because it’s all going to settle down, is to water the plant. Be sure when you water the plant that you water the soil around the plant and not the leaves.
So roses don’t have to be a thorny project for your home garden, after all it is the home that you give the roses, and the time that you take to stop and smell the roses that really counts.