General Garden Upkeep

Do this throughout the season and keep your roses in bloom all year.

1. Keep your garden clean.  If you have the time and a good back, after July 4^th remove the leaves from the bottom 6" of each cane on  your roses.  This makes it harder for insects and diseases to infect your roses.
2. Always remove spent blooms and suckers from your roses.
3. Always leave at least 2 or 3  five-leaflet leaves on the stem when cutting a bloom.  This encourages strong stems and repeat blooms.  The bud-eye at the cut should face away  from the center of the plant.
4. Finger prune when more than one bud grows from an eye.  Many times there will be two or three growing from a single eye.  Finger pruning means rubbing off the weaker growths.
5. Remove any shoots that don't have a bud at the end.  Don't be too hasty in this step.
6. All of these things will encourage stronger, thicker stems and more and better blooms.

Fall Care of Your Roses

1. Stop fertilizing on Labor Day
2. Continue spraying your roses until the first hard frost.
3. Continue watering, just not as often.  Roses need to be well hydrated going into winter.
4. If you have poorly growing plants, dig them up in early November, prune all dead wood from the bud union and prune remaining canes until they are no more than 12" long. Replant these roses in a different spot in the garden (plant as you would in the spring).