5 Mistakes to Avoid When Growing Roses

There are 5 fatal mistakes that prevent you from enjoying the beauty and fragrance of roses. Almost everyone who grows this type of flower, indoors or outdoors, makes them. Yet they are so common and obvious that they're easy to avoid, so you don't waste your gardening efforts.

Plant them with little sun

Roses, like oxygen, require plenty of natural light, and therefore should be placed in sunny areas. The most common mistake is to place them in partial or fully shaded areas, perhaps behind a wall or tree. The ideal, according to experts, is to ensure roses receive at least six hours of direct sunlight per day.

What happens to roses if they get too little sun? Simple: the flowers don't appear, or they fade and don't last long. And the plants are much more susceptible, and therefore more vulnerable, to disease.

Planting rose plants too close together is also a mistake: a space of 60 to 100 centimeters is needed to allow the plants to air out and prevent disease.

Water the plants every day

This is another wasteful obsession of rose growers. They naively think that more water will also lead to more flowers, but this isn't true. On the contrary. Too much water causes constantly wet soil, which reduces the oxygen available to the roots. This can lead to root rot, a fungal disease that causes the leaves to wilt and can kill the plant.

• Excess water also prevents the roots from absorbing nutrients, causing yellowing of the leaves and loss of vigor., while the soil is moist and wet leaves encourage the formation of fungi such as ruggine and downy mildew, which can cover leaves and flowers with orange, brown, or gray spots.

The ideal thing is to water infrequently (1-2 times a week), but very deeply, wetting the plant at the base and avoiding the leaves, to prevent fungi.

Don't prune

Pruning is essential for rose plants and should never be eliminated. Otherwise, the plant will flower less and grow fragile.

The following should be pruned:

• dry branches
• weak branches
• branches growing inward.

The best time to prune roses is between late winter and early spring.

Do not discard dried flowers

A similar argument applies to dried rose flowers, which should be removed promptly. When dried flowers are left on the plant, the rose invests energy in seed formation rather than producing new buds. By removing them, the plant focuses its resources on growing new flowers. Furthermore, wilted flowers can retain moisture and encourage the growth of fungi or mold on nearby leaves and buds, while removing dried flowers keeps the rose tidy and makes it more attractive.

•  the dried flowers

Finally, cutting off dried flowers also stimulates the formation of new, more vigorous branches and leaves.

Feed the rose plant little