Create Your Very Own Rose Garden with Minimum Costs

- DIY Guide By Georgiana Mihalache

December 2012

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Step 1 - Measure Your Garden

Get a blank piece of paper, measuring tape and start measuring, either the entire garden or the specific section that you plan to use for roses. Be as specific as you can and try to insert in your plan all the current items that you already have in place. Each item is important as it determines the available space for roses and specific climate conditions that may affect them after they are in place.

Remember that roses need: Minimum 6 hours of sun/day; Light, but not excessive heat planting them next to a Southern wall may cause excessive heating coming from the wall (that has been standing in the sun all day) and may cause damage to your roses; Water, but not too much roses need rare and abundant watering placing your roses near rain gutters may offer them too much moisture causing the roots to rot; Specific space around 20 cm (8 inches) for miniature roses, 40 cm (16 inches) for tea hybrid roses, 150 cm (60 inches) for rose bushes that grow taller and up to 2 m (6.5 feet) for climbers who sometimes are too crowded together in some gardens.

If you know how to use Excel or a similar tool, I recommend that you do. It helps you to be more specific and you can be sure that you use the same bench-mark (one cell can be 1 m, ft or in, whatever helps). Also, you can easily add new items or delete items that you no longer want while reconfiguring your plan. What you are doing now is creating a map of your garden mark your house, the alleys, the fence, mark each tree, the places covered by other flowers (i.e. If you have daffodils or lilies somewhere, digging to plant roses may damage them, so be careful where you place roses, considering what you already have in place), be careful about nut trees (it is recommended that you dont plant anything under them as the Iodine in their leaves is considered poisonous to the other plants and you will end up with some dead roses eventually), mark ant benches you may have, the pond, other bushes that tend to get large during summer months and may block the sun for your roses.

After measuring and putting everything on paper/in Excel, you should end up with something like this:

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The plan above is the plan of my garden a few months ago. In the meantime, more roses appeared and some of the items changed to make way for even more roses. Remember my 10,000 target? Of course they are not all going to fit in my garden, but I will find more space when I need it. For now I need to fill in the one I currently have. If the space in your garden is not that large and even if you only have a small balcony available, theres always a solution for you if you really love roses, you will find a place, even for a small rose and why not, you can ask friends and neighbors to allow you to plant in their gardens and enjoy the roses together. I have once read an article about a lady who really wanted to have a flower shop, but had no garden and no land to grow flowers on. Do you know what she did to make her dream come true? She asked people to rent to her pieces of their front lawns where she planted her flowers. So for a small fee,

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she rented the land to use for growing her flowers and the owners had amazing gardens in front of their houses, gardens they even were paid for.

Schonbrunn Gardens Vienna, Austria

Step 2 Select Your Roses

There are over 35,000 varieties of roses, so the options for your garden are practically unlimited, but there are a few clear categories to choose from: 1. Hybrid Tea Roses they are also known as noble roses and they are the roses with long stems; mostly they have only one large flower on each stem; for additional details I recommend: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_tea_rose ; 2. Floribunda Roses they are suitable for growing in groups, especially for hedges, in parks, but their arrangement also depends on your imagination; they are the roses with more than one flower on the same stem; for additional details I recommend: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floribunda_%28rose%29 ; 3. Miniature roses they develop short bushes and their flowers are considerably smaller than the rest of the groups they are suitable to be planted along taller roses, as edges or along the alleys; please remember that they cover very little space, but have the same needs as regular roses (trimming, frost protection, fertilizing, etc.); 4. Climbers they can reach up to 5 m (around 16ft) and are not correctly called climbers; they dont actually climb by themselves like the vine, but need support; they are suitable for walls, fences, any vertical decorations you can think of; they can be guided in a lot of shapes depending only on your imagination.

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Step 3 Make Your Roses

First of all you need an older rose from a friends garden or from someone allowing you to cut their roses. Make sure you see the rose in full bloom to be sure its the type you want. You might have surprises later if you dont see it for yourself.

Our first rose, unknown variety Tools you need: sharp garden scissors, knife, 2, 2.5, 3 or 5 liter plastic bottles with caps (5 l = 1 gallon approximately), whatever transparent, plastic bottles with cap that you have available; Recommended time: August - September when roses are in full bloom; Then, follow the next steps: - Choose a flower that has just been in bloom but has recently lost its petals. You will see only the petals holder left on the stick and a few leaves. Make sure the petals have recently fallen off and the plant is still all green. Dry pieces of the plant may cause failure; After selecting your flower (or better said former-flower) cut it off the plant and make sure you obtain a piece of plant of about 10-15cm (4-6 inches); its just like picking a flower, but with no petals. Make sure you cut the flower off with the sharp scissors. Dont just break it off with your hand. A clean cut increases your rate of success;

- After cutting the amount of flowers you want, select the exact same number of plastic bottles for them. Make sure the bottles are not green or dark brown (from beer for example). Clear bottles allow light to enter and this will help your new baby roses in spring when their first leaves crave for the light. I did this mistake and I had no new roses under dark bottles by spring;

- Select a place in your garden preferably sunny, but moist. However, if this is not possible, watering the flowers often can take care of the moist part;

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- Dig holes, fill them with loose soil combined with some old manure (about 10-20 % manure), water the soil thoroughly and then stick the little plant parts directly into the mud, about 30 cm ( 12 inches) far from each other;

- Cut the bottom of the plastic bottles with the knife and place each bottle on top of each rose taking the cap off to allow water and air inside; - Pour water into the bottle through the bottle neck at least 2-3 times a week, even more often if the weather is dry; 1 liter (a quarter of a gallon) for each rose should be enough; Do this until winter or rainy season comes when you no longer need to;

- When cold times start (November or depending of the weather in your region) put the caps on the bottles and stop watering them. Make sure to have the caps on when temperatures go below 5 degrees Celsius (41 degrees Fahrenheit);

Some of the new roses from our garden, all planted in 2012 with the use of the method above

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Keep the bottles like this until spring. When temperatures start growing and are above 10-15 degrees Celsius (50-59 Fahrenheit) you can take the lids off and allow the air to come inside the bottles. The scope of the bottles is to keep the new baby roses inside mini green houses; - If the ground is dry you can start watering the roses again preparing them to be moved to the final place you have assigned for them in the garden; - If temperatures are around 15 degrees Celsius (59 Fahrenheit), you can even remove the bottles and allow the plants to breathe; - In late March or April you can dig out the new baby roses and move them to their final assigned place. By then they should even have 5 or even fresher leaves. If you can, it is preferable to place them in their final place from the beginning. Moving them may cause some to die.

Schonbrunn Gardens Vienna, Austria Good luck. Our first success rate in 2011 was 50%. We had 5 new baby roses out of 10 plant parts. Now in 2012 its 100%.

Fresh roses from our garden Also, theres also the option of buying the roses you want, but that means money and we are talking here about a garden done with minimum costs. If you would like to buy some varieties and then

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use the techniques above to create more, thats also possible. I did buy some of the varieties I have, but half of them I got from family, friends and neighbors. If you decide to buy your roses or if you are lucky to receive them as present, the steps for planting them are below: 1. Dig a hole large enough for the roots to fit comfortably inside; 2. If too long, you can cut the roots a bit, but not too much because they contain valuable nutrients; 3. Place the roses inside the holes;

Roses placed in their holes all are Tea Hybrids 4. Cover the roots with soil, press the soil thoroughly with your feet to make sure that no air is trapped inside; leave a small ditch around it to allow water to penetrate the soil slowly and not flow away;

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5. Water thoroughly; if the water gets absorbed easily, pour some more; the rose needs plenty of water when planted, but not that much later on; roses need abundant but rare watering sessions; 6. If all the above are done in spring, you are done; if you are planting in autumn, follow steps below also: 7. The branches can be cut if too long (up to the length in the picture above), but it is not recommended if frost is coming they are more vulnerable better leave them as they are. Pour loose soil above the rose branches trying to cover them entirely; 8. For even better protection, you can place a plastic bottle above the soil (with its bottom cut off), but this stage is not mandatory; 9. In spring, remove the loose soil, leaving the branches and the grafting point outside to enjoy the warm sun; Thats it! Enjoy your roses.

Step 4 Protect your roses

Winter frost is one of the biggest enemies that roses have. When frost prepares to strike, you need to be ready. Heres what you can do for your roses: 1. Place piles of loose soil on the plant to protect it from the frost. Even if some of the longer branches freeze, the roots and the main larger ones will be safe; frozen branches will be cut off in spring and fresh, young branches will grow:

My older roses under piles of soil

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2. Place plastic bottles around newly planted roses to create a greenhouse effect the sun will warm the bottles and keep the rose under a decent temperature; however, piles of soil inside the bottle and above the branches are also recommended; the order of the items bottom up is this: a. Hole; b. Roots; c. Soil covering the roots and the grafting point in winter (grafting point outside in summer to prevent wild branches from growing); d. Loose soil above the rose, covering it preferably entirely; e. Plastic bottle the soil inside will still get enough humidity from the area around the rose;

Newly planted climbers in plastic bottles filled with soil and ready for winter

3. Cover the plant with straw, especially for climbers which will bloom on last years branches; this protects them from freezing; the climber in the second picture below is not entirely protected it will get more straw during the following days; so try to cover as much of it as possible.

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Straw protection

One of our Swan Lake climbers, covered partially in straw

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Step 5 Cut Your Roses

Cutting the roses can be done in autumn, right after planting them, in spring, after frost danger is gone or throughout the blooming period, immediately after flowers wither. In autumn it is recommended to avoid cutting the plant too deep especially if frost is coming; better dont do it at all and wait until spring. Freshly cut branches are more vulnerable to frost. In spring after frost danger is gone, roses are cut to make the bush younger; first of all remove all frozen parts and then you can focus on the rest. Cutting helps the rose bush grow young and fresh branches so dont be afraid to cut, but since this is a brochure for beginner rose lovers, I recommend a specialist in doing this for you or I will come back with more information later on. Throughout the year: 1. It is recommended that the first flowers of a rose are cut off to allow the bush to grow stronger; since this is almost impossible as everybody wants to see the flowers in bloom sooner, most of you probably wont bother with this piece of advice; 2. It is also recommended that withered flowers are cut off to allow the rose bush to focus on new buds that will grow stronger and more beautiful. This I am sure you will do.

Climbers in Schonbrunn Gardens, Vienna, Austria

These being said, I wish you the best of luck with your rose gardens and please visit my blog from time to time for more ideas, advice and update on my 10,000 roses dream garden.

Take care, Geo http://10000-roses.blogspot.com .12