General Rose Care
Roses do well in 6 hours of sun a day or more, while 8 hours or more is best. While some roses, like Rosa rugosa, can tolerate the partial shade areas of our yard, for real rose success, make certain to offer these plants as much light as possible. Roses planted in the shade with be leggy, reach toward the light, flower poorly, and be more susceptible to pests and diseases.
Water deeply when the top inch of soil is dry, at the base of the plant. Do not water the top; getting the foliage and flowers wet encourages fungus like Black Spot and Powdery Mildew. While easy to treat when caught early, not watering from the top of the plant is a great way to prevent serious problems.
To keep reblooming roses in flower all season long, they do require more fertilizer than other, shorter blooming shrubs.
Low Maintenance Roses to Get You Started
Knock Out Roses - These roses come in red, pink, yellow, white and ‘rainbow’, making their colour choices wide and varied enough for any garden. Knock-Out roses are disease resistant and start blooming as early as May, frequently blooming in to October. These are easily the longest blooming, and lowest maintenance rose available on the market. Knock Out Roses grow 3-4 feet tall and wide, but can be easily kept pruned to smaller dimensions if desired.
Drift and Carpet Roses - Drift and Carpet roses cover a variety of types and colors. They tend to have smaller, but more abundant flowers than some of their cousins. Best planted in groups for spectacular color from June until frost, these roses are low maintenance in that they require less fertilizer and irrigation than some of the larger flowering varieties. Great for borders, very little pruning required.
Climbing - Meant to be planted along a fence or trellis, many climbing roses add true elegance to the garden once established. Early care involves tying or weaving them to the object they are meant to climb, but once in place, these roses really take off. Generally pest and disease resistant, care is needed to keep them from becoming too overgrown. Some climbing roses only flower once, others will re-flower over the season.
Rugosa - Tolerant of salt, wind and partial shade, R. Rugosa are tough roses. Heavily fragrant, they flower boldly once in June and then sporadically after that. They are a great rose for wildlife or foraging, as they supply large, red hips in the autumn.
Other Types of Roses
Floribunda - Floribunda roses are ideal for borders or containers. With a cluster of flowers topping each stem, Floridbunda roses provide an almost constant show of color, and bloom more freely than hybrid teas and grandifloras. Flowers are smallish, but prolific. Previously called hybrid polyanthas.
Hybrid Tea Roses - Some of the most difficult roses to grow on Long Island. Hybrid Teas Roses are tall, elegant plants producing the classic long-stem rose. They produce individual blossoms and flower repeatedly during the season. Hybrid Tea Roses are a Cultivar Group of roses, created by cross-breeding two different types of roses. They have special pruning requirements to showcase the long stems and blossoms.
Grandiflora - Grandiflora roses blend the best traits of hybrid teas and floribundas. They produce the same elegantly shaped blooms as hybrid teas, but in long-stemmed clusters that continually repeat, like floribundas. The plants tend to be tall (up to 7 feet), hardy, and moderately disease-resistant.
English Style Roses (David Austin, Star, etc) - One of the biggest challenges for late 20th-century rose breeders was restoring fragrance while improving vigor of new rose introductions. English-style roses provide a lush, romantic solution. The flowers are densely filled with petals, much like antique roses, and most possess a strong fragrance that harkens back to old-fashioned tea roses. Yet their growth habits, health, and, most of all, their tendency to repeat bloom, are an improvement on their ancestors. English roses are a good choice for cutting gardens. They do best in drier climates than Long Island, however, and can struggle with black spot and other fungal diseases.
Miniature Roses - Usually less than two feet tall, miniature roses are sometimes grown as house plants and almost always in pots. Though occasionally fickle, they make a lovely gift.
Old Garden Roses - The old garden roses (also known as antique or heritage roses) consist of rose classes that existed prior to 1867, the date of the first hybrid tea, La France. The classes include the species (wild) roses, albas, bourbons, centifolias, damasks, eglantines, gallicas, mosses, noisettes, portlands, teas, etc. They come in every growth and bloom pattern and color imaginable. They can range from 1 foot to over 50 feet in height. About half of the old garden roses have good to excellent repeat bloom. Difficult to find in nurseries, online retailers may suit you better.
Planting
Roses can be planted at any time, though roses planted in the summer may need extra monitoring.
Dig a hole about twice as wide, but no deeper than the root ball. Amend the soil with up to 1/3rd additional compost or well rotted manure. Loosen up the roots around the edges of the root ball carefully before settling in to the hole. A cup of bone meal added to the backfill soil offers good calcium and phosphorus, necessary for flowering.
Water deeply once planted and every 2-3 days after that for the first 3-4 weeks. For the rest of the season, water twice a week, depending on the weather. Generally, roses are not drought tolerant and require about an inch of water a week. Mulch to retain moisture and prevent weeds. A soaker hose can be a great tool, especially if you are growing multiple rose bushes. Do not rely on a sprinkler system to water your roses.
Pruning and Deadheading
If pruning roses that only bloom once, be sure to prune them as soon as they are done flowering. Repeat blooming roses can be pruned in spring, when they are first starting to push growth or autumn on Long Island.
Use sharp, curved shears to make angled cuts slightly above leaf buds if possible. Disinfect your pruners between bushes if all are healthy, or between cuts if there have been disease issues in the past.
Remove weak or crossing branches to open up the interior of the rose bush. Remove broken or otherwise unhealthy branches (canker, etc) if needed. As you prune, keep in mind you want your plants to grow with an open center, so air can flow freely through the plant. Unless necessary because of disease, do not remove more than 1/3 to 1/2 of the existing growth.
Deadheading keeps your roses looking neat and often increases flowering by refocusing the plants energy from hips to more buds. Deadheading can be done during the whole flowering season by clipping off spent flowers. If no flower buds already exist beneath it, cut back the stem to the next point where five leaves grow together on the leaflet.
Common Pests and Diseases of Roses and Treatment
Even disease-resistant roses can have problems with certain pests and diseases, especially here on Long Island. No rose is ‘disease proof’, though some types are more prone than others. Look for resistant varieties, especially if you are new to rose care, or have a chronic problem with a particular disease in your area. Treat roses early, before the damage gets too severe for best results. Neem Oil is a great, all purpose treatment for many of the pests and diseases that affect roses, and is an excellent tool to keep on hand. Don't forget to clean up old foliage, either in season or in autumn clean up to help prevent a recurrence.
Do NOT fertilize sick roses!
Aphids, Mites and Thrips - all are small (in the case of mites and thrips, very small) insect infestations that can cause big problems. Stunted growth in leaves and flowers, curled, speckled/stipled or deformed leaves, deformed, streaked or weak flowers, and webbing beneath the leaves are all signs of damage. Can be treated with insecticidal soap, horticultural oil or neem oil.
Scale or Mealy bugs - may look like hard scales or fuzzy white splotches on the stems. Can cause whole stem die back if left untreated. Can be difficult to control and will require multiple rounds of oils or a systemic treatment for severe infestations.
Japanese and Oriental Beetles - Often night feeding, they will devour the blooms and skeletonize the leaves of rose bushes and other desirable food sources. Even treating grubs in your lawn may not prevent feeding by traveling beetles in summer. Neem oil can be used as a preventative when hot weather starts, and every three weeks there after if you know there are a lot of beetles in your area.
Black Spot - Fungal disease that causes black spots on the leaves. Treatment with Neem oil will not remove existing damage, but regular treatment will prevent new damage. Treat preventively for susceptible varieties or plants that have struggled with it in the past. Be extra careful to not water the leaves unnecessarily, as this can lead to spreading this disease as the spores splash.
Powdery Mildew/Downy Mildew - Characterized by white or grey powdery or fuzzy coating on leaves and/or flowers. This fungal disease proliferates in hot, wet environments. Because our summers are hot and humid, this can be a particular problem here. Treat with Neem oil to prevent further damage. Once new growth starts, prune off and dispose of the affected foliage and retreat.
Rust - Another fungal disease. Presents with red, orange or brown spots on the top of the leaves with orange pustules of spores beneath the leaves. Treat with Neem oil and then again in 3 weeks.
Cankers - These present as small yellowish or reddish spots that may turn brown on bark slowly increasing in size. The tissue within the infection begins to dry out and shrink, presenting a shriveled appearance. If the disease infects only part of the stem, growth above the canker will continue. If it girdles the stem, however, growth will cease and the stem will die. Prune affected canes back to healthy wood, disinfecting pruners with each cut.
Salt Damage - Roses planted near the street where winter plowing occurs or along walkways that are salted may present with limp new growth, light brown new growth and dry margins around the leaves. Plant more resistant varieties like R. rugosa or other dune style roses in areas this may be a problem. While not labeled as such, we have found Knock-Out Roses to be moderately tolerant of salt.
Frost Damage - late frost can kill off new growth and buds, especially if early spring was particularly warm. Do not fertilize until new growth starts again. Prune off damages growth once the extent of it is clear.