Winter is bare-root planting season, the best time of year to establish new roses in your garden, ensuring beautiful displays of wonderfully fragrant flowers for years to come. Clare Foggett shares tips on how to grow bare-root roses and asks growers to name their favourite varieties.
Bare-root roses (those that are dug up from the nursery’s fields during dormancy and come without soil around their roots) are delivered from November onwards and can be planted throughout the winter. Now is the time to order for the widest choice of varieties and, come summer, the reward will be the most colourful, fragrant and quintessentially English garden flowers there are.
If you are new to rose gardening, do not be put off by a perception that roses are complicated. Think of them merely as a flowering shrub, and the prospect immediately becomes less daunting. Also, be heartened by the fact that starting with bare-root roses is the best possible way to establish new plants.
How to grow bare-root roses
Planting:
Bare-root roses can be planted during their dormant season from now until February, and they do not need to be planted as soon as the parcel arrives. Simply ‘plant’ them temporarily into a bucket of damp compost and because they are dormant they will happily wait. Just don’t let the roots dry out.
- Choose an open, sunny position and prepare the soil by digging in lots of well-rotted manure or compost to a depth of at least 40cm.
- Dig a large hole and work a handful of bonemeal into its base. You could also use a sachet of beneficial fungi such as Rootgrow – the mycorrhizal fungi that helps plants’ roots establish in the soil.
- Before planting, soak the roots of the rose in a bucket of water for 20-30 minutes. Also, check the roots over and prune off any damaged ones.
- The majority of roses are grafted onto a specially chosen rootstock. When planting, make sure the graft union (the join between the rose and its rootstock) is 5-7cm below soil level. This helps stop the rootstock putting out vigorous shoots (suckers). The graft union is easily spotted – it’s the bulge at the bottom of the shoots.
- Firm the rose in with your heel to get rid of any air pockets in the planting hole and water in well. Then prune the shoots of bush roses hard back to about 20cm (8in).
Growing:
- Water newly planted roses thoroughly, especially during dry spells. Small applications of water encourage rose roots to come to the surface, so give them a good watering can-full each time you water.
- Once roses are growing, feeding and mulching will help ensure their best performance. All roses appreciate fertile soil, especially those that repeat flower, so in addition to initial soil preparation, you should spread a thick layer of well-rotted manure or compost around the base of the bushes in spring every year.
- Work a specialist granular rose fertiliser into the soil around the bottom of the plants at the same time, repeating in mid-summer.
- A healthy, established rose can get by on relatively little water, but in very hot spells, a good soaking will help.
- Keep summer displays looking good by regularly removing the old, dead blooms. With once-flowering roses, don’t deadhead if you want autumn hips.
Which bare-root roses to choose?
There are thousands of varieties of bare-root roses to choose between. Nostalgic, old-fashioned varieties and species roses often flower only once and can be more vulnerable to disease. That said, many gardeners will argue that a few black-spotted leaves are worth tolerating for these roses’ magnificent, usually heavily scented, flowering display.
More modern varieties repeat flower and have normally been bred with health and disease-resistance a priority. Most also have excellent scent. David Austin’s English roses are well known, beautifully combining the best qualities of both old and new varieties, but other new roses are produced by equally well-regarded breeders across the country.
Rose recommendations:
Britain’s rose growers select their favourite varieties for planting this winter.
- ‘Mortimer Sackler’ has lovely dark foliage, dark stems and very few thorns; it’s very different to the average rose – Michael Marriott, David Austin Roses.
- ‘Super Trouper’ is amazing. It’s so bright and vibrant, it really sharpens up people’s gardens in an ‘in your face’ way – Elizabeth Sawday, Apuldram Roses.
- ‘Chandos Beauty’ has such a lovely fragrance and beautifully shaped buds that are equally beautiful opening out – Alison Cunningham, Pococks Roses.
- ‘Lovestruck’ is such a healthy variety, flowering until really late in the season. It was 2018’s Rose of the Year – Colin Dickson, Dickson Roses.
- ‘Eirene’ was launched to mark 100 years since the end of World War I and as my granddad was a veteran, it’s my choice – Diana Woodman, Fryers Roses.
- ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ is such a good rose. It has a lovely perfume, it’ll grow in a pot or in the garden – Keith Jones, C&K Jones.
- ‘Jacqueline du Pré’ is charming. She flowers early and she flowers long – absolutely gorgeous and very popular – Philip Harkness, Harkness Roses.
- Rosa mutabilis has a long season and its varying flower colour is lovely. It can be grown as a shrub or a climber – Tina Limmer, Peter Beales Roses.
- ‘Esmé’ is our newly introduced rose with large cream blooms, a strong scent of peaches and a compact habit ideal for pots – Henry White, Trevor White Roses.
Of course, the other way to find your next rose is simply by falling in love with one in a summer garden – by their nature, many prove irresistible.
