Refresh Your Landscape Roses for Fall Blooms
August 10, 2015 | By webadmin
Texans do love their rose gardens. Certain rose varieties can be beautiful and tough additions to colorful and low-maintenance landscapes. Even so, our intense late-summer heat in Dallas can often put even the toughest garden plants to the test. Many roses don’t always look their best in August and could use a bit of grooming to get them back into tip-top shape for the fall season.
Whether you are a DIYer or you have a maintenance service, there are a few key steps to follow to have beautiful roses this fall:
Prune Now for Autumn Blooms
A light pruning to your rose plants in mid-August will stimulate fresh, healthy growth and bloom for fall. Best practice is to prune away about 25% of the spent flowers and stems. It’s a lighter pruning than you’ll do in February, but it will improve their look and fall performance. Be sure to remove any heat stressed leaves, dying or dead canes or canes that are crossing and rubbing against each other. Pruning now will also encourage better air circulation through the plant. Giving your roses air space is a great way to keep them from contracting fungal diseases. Clean up all leaf litter under your rose plants. This is where fungal diseases often hide.
TIP: Love rose hips? Then be sure not to deadhead your fall blooms! The hips will show up after the bloom is gone. They can be harvested for teas and jellies.
Fertilize
After you’ve finished pruning your roses, you’ll need to feed them. In order to put on all that healthy fresh new growth and flower buds, the plants will need a boost of nutrients. Apply a rose fertilizer to each plant per the instructions on the label and water plants thoroughly.
Mulch
Once your roses are pruned, you’ve cleaned up the leaf litter around the base of the plant, and fertilized, it’s time to mulch. Add two-inches of mulch around the root zone of the plant, but take care not to pile mulch up around the base of the canes. Mulch gives garden beds a finished look, helps retain moisture and insulate plant roots.
Running out of time with back-to-school schedules and work? We can handle your rose and landscape maintenance for you. Just let us know when you need a hand.
