How to take care of roses in spring so that they bloom in lush color, are healthy, delighted us throughout the season. It is in the spring that the forces of all plants are activated, roses are no exception. Spring care for roses should be especially thorough. There is a lot of trouble, but the result will be more pleasant. It is difficult to find a gardener who would remain indifferent to beauty, the charm of a rose. She is rightly called the queen of the garden, today any summer resident has at least one rose bush on the site. You should start working with roses in the garden immediately after the winter months, and in our Kuban it is possible even earlier.
Spring treatment of roses, care for them includes competent pruning of old shoots, mulching the soil of the plot with roses, fertilizing with fertilizers, providing protection against diseases, garden pests. But it all starts with the timely opening of the rose - in the spring this is a very important moment. In the Kuban, they are sheltered for the winter only if they were planted in late autumn and there are fears that rooting was weak. Mostly the entire shelter consists in hilling the root of the rose with earth for the winter.
When to take shelter from roses in spring
The rose itself is a very sensitive plant. She reacts even to slight warming. With the onset of spring, her buds swell, this happens even when the shoots are still under cover material. Here it is important to correctly “guess” the moment - to prevent shedding when the shoots blacken and subsequently die. But the coin, as they say, has two sides - removing the winter protection too early can also lead to the death of the bush from the cold.
When do roses open in spring? The answer to this question depends on the climatic features of individual regions. For example, in our Kuban, roses are sheltered for the winter only after planting in the fall, and all other years the roses only grow up. With the onset of spring, the earth is simply shoveling off, followed by pruning and subsequent care.
In cases where the bushes are covered with protective material, their winter sleep ceases with the onset of the first heat. At this time, the kidneys wake up, but the roots that are in the earth are still sleeping. Therefore, in the more northern regions, when there is still snow in March, small snowdrifts are thrown over the covered rose bushes, and removed already during active melting (early April).
If meltwater accumulates around roses, it is best to make grooves to remove moisture. When spring confidently enters into its own rights, one can begin to raise the edges of the defense - thereby providing airing to the bushes. At this time, the earth around the rosary can be slowly loosened.
It is worth completely removing the covering material in the spring when the ground under the roses thaws, warms up to a depth of 20-25 cm. It is better to do this in the evening, so that the sun's rays do not cause stress to the shoots that have become unaccustomed for winter. If the sun is very active, then at first shading will not hurt the shoots so that they get used to a new rhythm of life (acclimatize). Next comes the cropping time.
How to prune roses in spring
The most important condition for leaving - pruning should be done before the release of the first kidneys, before the onset of the active growth phase. After the roses fulfill their purpose - they will please us with flowers for several years, their branches die off.
The process starts from the top of the stem, at the same time, a new young shoot tends upward, activating from a kidney located below. Dying stems must be removed in a timely manner, since in addition to violating the general appearance of the bush, they are a breeding ground for pests or pathogens.
Pruning roses in the spring is the most important, in addition to removing obsolete shoots, it allows you to form attractive outlines of the bush, to provide active abundant flowering.
For this process you should have:
- secateurs (for rough branches);
- garden scissors with elongated handles (to penetrate the thick thorny branches);
- a small saw;
- sharp knife;
- work gloves
- garden var (to cover sections).
The pruning technique is a delicate matter, but there are no special tricks here. It is only necessary to deal with general principles, to study the characteristics of the care of individual varieties. The specifics of how roses are trimmed correctly in the spring will become clearer for beginning gardeners if we talk in more detail about the sanitary and basic method of pruning.
Sanitary pruning: first remove dead branches affected by disease or frost.
Thin growths are also removed, since they will not become full-fledged shoots, but will only pull forces from the bush, spoil the general appearance of the crown. If you see shoots growing inward, then remove them too. Cropped diseased branches are best burned to prevent the spread of disease.
Main pruning: select strong branches, and then shorten them with secateurs at the level of the upper living kidney.
Sleeping buds are at the very bottom of the shoot, it will take a long time until they germinate and become active. We trim in the spring so that the center becomes open - the crown should be “aired”. An open-center crown also allows the bush to receive more moisture when watering or during rain.
The cut-off location itself should be flat (make sure the tool is sharp). The slice should have a white core.
Caring for a rose in the spring involves treating each cut with garden variety, do not forget about it.
If in the area between the base of the leaf and the branch you see a lot of shoots, then delete all but one (the most powerful).
Pruning roses in spring is divided into three types: short, medium, long. With a short shoot below the bottom, four active buds are counted, and the rest is removed - this method helps to restore strength to the old bushes (rejuvenate them). This method is used as "resuscitation" of plants affected by frost, as well as when planting young seedlings.
Middle pruning of roses in spring is used to stimulate early flowering; in addition, this method positively affects the decorativeness of the plant. In this case, 7 buds are counted from the bottom of the shoot, the rest is removed, thus, future buds will be larger, and the flowering will be magnificent. Such an operation is useful not only in the spring, but also in the summer.
Long pruning is used to easily shorten the branches, but for some ground cover varieties of roses it is the main one. In summer, this technique is used to remove faded buds.
Pruning of roses is also carried out according to the requirements of varietal accessories: tea can be left with 80-100 cm stems, floribunda - 40-50 cm, ordinary species - 15-30 cm.
Garter, fertilizer, mulching roses
Timely garter of branches gives the shoots the right direction up or to the sides. For this, special supports and a strapping (self-locking) garden wire are used, but you can use an ordinary rope. Supports and garter in spring are very important for the formation of the bush, as well as for climbing varieties - the direction of their branches is determined from the very beginning of development.
How to care for roses in spring? Fertilizing after awakening the shoots is simply necessary. For roses, two top dressings per year are enough - in spring (after pruning) and in summer (to give strength before the second flowering wave). Spring top dressing contributes to the rapid development, lush flowering, magnesium, potash, phosphorus, nitrogen fertilizers are excellent for these purposes. A single dose of nutrition - approximately 30 grams. Also, chicken droppings, which are actively added to general fertilizer by experienced gardeners, will not be superfluous. Before top dressing, the soil near the bush should be loosened, saturated with moisture, the fertilizer is distributed evenly in a circle, and then mulched with organic matter.
Video about feeding roses in spring:
Caring for roses in spring involves mulching the soil - a necessary way to maintain plant health. Mulching not only accumulates heat, moisture, beneficial components of fertilizers in the ground, but also provides protection for the root system. In addition, scattered wood chips or finely chopped tree bark looks very attractive, giving the rose garden a well-groomed appearance. When mulching the soil, it is necessary to ensure that the materials evenly cover the ground around the roses (4-6 cm layer), but do not cover the aerial part of the bush.
As mulch for roses, you can use sawdust (which is more than a year old, fresh can not be), hay (dry grass), compost, shredded paper, bird droppings. Make sure that in the mulching material there are no chemical compounds, herbicides, plant seeds, or any other harmful substances. If you have already pruned roses in the spring, than to feed them, with what material to mulch the soil - now the most important stages of caring for them. Mulching is done immediately after fertilizing, for each bush you need about 4-6 kg of material.
Spring treatment of roses from diseases and pests
As soon as roses enter the phase of active growth, they can already be treated with special means to protect against diseases, insect parasites. Usually spraying is done 3-4 days after pruning. With a spider mite, aphids, cicadas, as well as powdery mildew, rust, marsonin, chlorosis, and other ills of roses, it is best to deal with complex universal preparations. Insecticides (“Karbofos”, “Rogor-S”, “Antio”, “Actellik” and others) work to destroy pests.
Against diseases, good results are obtained by using the good old kerosene (1 teaspoon / 10 l of water) and copper sulfate (3% solution). However, experienced summer residents praise them in every possible way, recommend the universal powerful drug RoseClear, which combines the qualities of an insecticide and a fungicide at the same time. Processing roses in the spring from diseases and pests with this tool allows you to get rid of two problems in one fell swoop.
Such irrigation should be carried out on a calm day, wearing a respirator mask. It is recommended to treat the bushes every 2 weeks, the drug is bred according to the attached instructions.
It is also worth mentioning that it is not necessary to use excessively aggressive chemicals to protect and treat roses. The branches and foliage of roses can suffer (chemical burns), and there will be more harm than good.
Watch a video about rose diseases:
Roses - this is a wonderful decoration of a garden or a summer cottage, granted to us by nature itself, and we can afford providing comfortable conditions for them. Care for roses in the spring begins from the first days of March (for the Kuban) or April (for the middle lane). If you do everything right: carry out pruning, fertilize, treat the bushes with pest protection, they will delight you with their splendor every day until late autumn.