Boost Your Blooms: Unleash Your Roses' Potential This Summer

After devoting numerous hours tending to your rose bush, it’s natural to want to see it flowering abundantly. Ensuring roses bloom continuously through their growth period, however, requires extra nurturing and expertise.

To provide more insight, we caught up with professional gardeners who shared top tips to encourage your roses to bloom endlessly throughout the summer.

Rule number one, understand the watering needs of your roses. The key is consistency, as roses are notorious for needing plenty of water.

Ward Dilmore, founder and principal landscape designer at Petrus Landscape, points out, “Roses rank amongst the top consumers of nutrients and water in an average garden.”

Providing generous hydration to your roses is sure to bring about more blossoms. During summer, Dilmore advises watering roses at least every alternate day in a cooler environment. Proponents in a warmer climate like California should water their roses every day.

Consequently, one must adapt their watering frequency based on the season and the warmth of their local climate.

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Spring stands as the ideal time to feed your roses. At the onset of new leaf growth for the season, scatter a balanced fertilizer around the plant base, adds Dilmore.

“Post the first bloom cycle in spring, you can reinforce with another round of fertilizer around the base for the next bloom cycle," Dilmore suggests.

Repeat this process after every bloom cycle up until autumn to ensure your roses flourish throughout the summer and perhaps, the entire year. When choosing a fertilizer, opt for a variant specially designed to stimulate blooming.

“Just ensure to choose a fertilizer rich in phosphorus,” Dilmore adds.

Once a rose has wilted, be sure to deadhead the bloom to make room for more flowers. According to Wes Harvell, a rosarian and rose category manager at Jackson & Perkin, deadheading roses inhibits seed formation and prompts the plant to produce more blooms.

“For optimum results, trim wilted blooms just above the first set of five leaves every couple of days,” he suggests.

Failing to deadhead will cause the flowers to produce a seed pod or hip, instead of a new flower.

Pests and disease can drastically reduce your rose’s blooming capacity. Therefore, regularly inspect your rose leaves and promptly address issues like black spot or aphids using suitable methods, advises Harvell.

“Healthy foliage enables the plant to channel its energy towards blooming, rather than recovering," Harvell explains.

In short, promptly combating issues will ensure that your rose can focus its energy on flowering. Meanwhile, speedy treatment will prevent the infection from spreading to nearby rose bushes.

Just like deadheading, habitual pruning can also promote frequent blooming.

Pruning might seem daunting, but your rose bush will thank you for eliminating harmful obstacles that may stunt their full blooming potential, assures Tyler Francis, the lead farmer and co-founder of April & Ashley.

Francis recommends using sanitary pruners to prevent disease transmission, especially when shifting from one bush to another. Eradicate any dead, dying, diseased, or intercrossing canes, he suggests.

“Lastly, remove any thin, weak branches that lack the strength to support robust blooms," Francis adds.

This tip might be late for those with established roses, but here's a pro-tip for those planning to add more roses: Opt for the perfect sunlit location with well-drained soil.

Roses love sunlight, so aim to plant them where they will receive at least six hours of sunlight daily, says Francis. Otherwise, your roses may not produce as many blooms. Furthermore, dodge terrain prone to flooding and select a site with good drainage to maintain dry roots.

“If roses had a pet peeve, it would be having waterlogged roots,” concludes Francis.