Roses have been a favourite in British gardens for generations, known for their versatility, fragrance and long-flowering season. From traditional cottage gardens to elegant climbers covering arches and walls, there are roses to suit every garden space.
Whether you’re planting your first rose or expanding your collection, choosing the right variety and giving it the care it needs will help you enjoy healthy plants year after year.
Why Choose Roses?
Available in a wide range of sizes, colours and scent, roses can be used to create everything from formal displays to colourful climbing structures and patio containers. With over 30,000 varieties of roses across more than 150 separate species, it can feel overwhelming knowing where to start.
First, think about where you want to plant your rose. Is it for a small garden, a border or wall display? Knowing how much space you have available for planting will help you decide the size of roses you’ll need. For smaller areas, single petal roses look fantastic in containers. In comparison, if you are looking for roses to fill a larger space, climbing or groundcover roses with classic shapes may be more effective.
Secondly, how much sun does the planting area receive? All roses love the sun, so to ensure successful growth and flowering check you have a space available that receives at least 4 hours of direct sunlight a day. If your garden is north facing, there are some roses suited to shade too, so you can still grow these beautiful flowers.
You can choose from roses of almost every colour; classic reds, pinks, purples, oranges and yellows, whichever complements your garden style. With the right care, your roses can thrive and flourish for many years.
Understanding the Different Types of Roses
Bush Roses: A great all-round choice, bush roses are perfect for borders and beds, producing beautiful blooms throughout summer. Many varieties are repeat flowering, bringing colour back year after year. They grow as compact, upright plants, making them easy to fit into gardens of all sizes.
Shrub Roses: Hardy and easy to grow, shrub roses flower from summer into autumn and are ideal for borders, informal hedging and cottage-style gardens. They develop into larger, bushier plants with a naturally rounded shape, providing structure as well as seasonal colour.
Climbing Roses: Add height and colour to your garden with climbing roses. They’re an excellent choice for walls, fences, arches and pergolas, with many varieties also offering a beautiful fragrance. They produce long, flexible stems that can be trained onto supports using a trellis or taut wires, although they can take between one and three years to become fully established.
Rambling Roses: Ideal for large walls or growing into the canopy of a large tree, rambling roses are very vigorous. They produce one spectacular flush of flower clusters in late spring to early summer.
Ground Cover Roses: Ground cover roses spread to create a colourful carpet of flowers, making them ideal for banks, borders and other low-maintenance areas. Their low-growing, spreading habit helps to cover bare soil while naturally suppressing weeds.
Patio Roses: Short on space? Patio roses are ideal for pots, patios and smaller gardens, bringing plenty of colour wherever you plant them. Their compact growth makes them easy to maintain and well suited to containers or the front of borders.
Floribunda Roses: Loved for their masses of colourful blooms, floribunda roses flower over a long season and are ideal for creating bright, reliable displays. They grow as neat, bushy plants, producing clusters of flowers continuously throughout the summer.
Hybrid Tea Roses: If you’re after classic rose blooms, hybrid tea roses produce large, elegant flowers on long stems that are perfect for cutting. Many varieties are also beautifully fragrant. They have an upright, open growth habit, making them an excellent choice for formal borders and dedicated rose beds.
Our Top Tips for Planting Roses
Roses thrive when they are planted in a sunny space with good airflow, without being too exposed. They prefer free-draining soil, so if your garden is on the heavy or clay side, we recommend adding some compost before planting.
Ensure your desired planting area is 30-45cm from walls or fences, to avoid the dry ‘rain shadow’. Avoid planting your rose where another has previously been planted, as the soil can harbour disease. If you’re replanting in the same spot, replace the old soil with fresh soil before planting.
Sit your rose in water for 20 minutes, then dig a hole slightly larger than the rootball. Carefully tease out the roots and plant your rose with the graft union at soil level. Firm the soil, water in well and add a layer of mulch to help retain moisture and suppress weeds. Keep your rose well-watered during dry spells while it becomes established. Roses benefit from adding mycorrhiza when planting, available from our garden centres. This helps establish the root system and improves drought and disease resistance.
If you’re growing your rose in a pot or container, choose a good-quality compost such as John Innes Number 3, and make sure there are drainage holes to prevent waterlogging. Top up the compost each winter to keep your rose growing well.
Container roses can be planted at any time of year, so you are able to visit the garden centre and see the flowers before you buy, although Autumn or Spring planting is ideal. Avoid planting roses when the ground is waterlogged or frozen, or during unusually warm weather and drought.
Feeding and Watering Advice
Roses benefit from regular watering while they are becoming established and during prolonged dry spells. Although mature roses develop deep roots that can access moisture further down in the soil, container-grown roses dry out much quicker and may require watering twice a day during hot weather. To check if your rose needs watering, push your fingers two inches into the compost; if it feels dry at that depth, it is time to water. Water the soil rather than the leaves, ideally in the morning, to help reduce the risk of fungal diseases such as black spot and rust.
To encourage healthy growth and abundant flowers, feed roses in spring with a granular rose fertiliser or general-purpose plant feed, then apply a layer of compost around the base of the plant, taking care not to let it touch the stems. Repeat-flowering varieties will also benefit from a second feed after their first flush of blooms. If you’re growing roses in containers, they’ll need more frequent feeding throughout the growing season, and regular deadheading will encourage repeat-flowering varieties to produce blooms for longer.
Seasonal Care
Spring
As your roses come into growth, spring is the perfect time to give them a boost. Feed with a granular rose fertiliser and apply a layer of mulch to help retain moisture and prevent weeds. It is the perfect time to prune bush and shrub roses if needed. Remember to keep an eye out for aphids and remove any dead or damaged growth.
Summer
During dry spells and while your rose is becoming established, ensure you are watering it regularly. Deadhead repeat-flowering varieties to encourage more blooms and continue feeding with a liquid rose feed, such as Vitax Organic Rose Food to keep your roses looking their best. Avoid feeding after August as soft growth may be damaged by cold winters.
Autumn
Enjoy the final flush of flowers before tidying up your roses. Remove any fallen leaves to help reduce the risk of disease, lightly trim taller roses to prevent wind damage, and plant new bare-root roses as they become available.
Winter
Add a layer of mulch around established plants to protect the roots and improve the soil and carry out winter pruning on suitable rose types to encourage healthy growth in spring
Roses for Pollinators
If you’re planting for a wildlife-friendly garden, there are many varieties of roses that attract bees alongside other beneficial insects. Roses with single and semi-doubled flower shapes have the most accessible pollen and therefore are the best varieties for supporting pollinating insects.
Repeat-flowering roses offer pollen consistently throughout the warmer months, providing a reliable source of food to encourage wildlife to your garden over longer periods of time.
Roses don’t only support wildlife during the summer months. If left after flowering, many roses also produce colourful hips in autumn. These rose hips not only provide a valuable food source for birds but also adds seasonal interest to your garden.
What to Plant with Roses
Roses pair beautifully with a wide range of companion plants that enjoy the same sunny, well-drained growing conditions. Companion planting creates a more colourful and interesting display whilst also helping to attract pollinating insects and extending the season of interest in your garden.
Salvias, hardy geraniums, alliums and lavender all make excellent companions for roses. Their contrasting shapes and textures help show off rose blooms, while their flowers attract bees, butterflies and other beneficial insects. Many of these are available in a variety of colours, so you can create a display that perfectly suits your garden.
Things To Watch Out For
Like all garden plants, roses can occasionally be affected by pests and diseases. Most problems can be managed by spotting them early and keeping your plants healthy with good care.
Let’s look at some of those problems and how to prevent them:
Black Spot
One of the most common rose diseases, black spot appears as dark spots on the leaves, which gradually turn yellow and fall. Remove and dispose of affected leaves and avoid watering the foliage to help reduce the spread.
Powdery Mildew
Powdery mildew shows as a white, powdery coating on leaves, buds and young shoots. It is more common during warm, dry weather or where air circulation is poor. Leave spacing between planning roses and ensure they are in a sunny position to help prevent mildew appearing.
Rust
Rose rust can cause orange or rusty-coloured spots on the undersides of leaves, which can lead to premature leaf drop. Remove any affected foliage and clear away fallen leaves to reduce the risk of the disease returning.
Aphids
Aphids are small green, black or pink insects that feed on soft new growth and flower buds. They are an important food source for birds, ladybirds and other beneficial wildlife, so they can often be left alone unless numbers become excessive.
There are a number of specialist rose treatments available from our garden centres. RoseClear is a combined insecticide and fungicide spray used to kill aphids, control fungal diseases like black spot and rust, and protect new plant growth. Alternatively, Organic Rose Guard works by physical action providing protection against aphids, powdery mildew and other leaf diseases.
Choosing the Right Roses for You
Roses remain one of the most rewarding plants that you can grow, no matter how much gardening experience you have. With the right care, they’ll provide colour, fragrance and interest to your garden for many years.
Explore our range of roses in store today, and our friendly team are always happy to help you choose the right variety for your garden.
For everything you need to grow healthy, beautiful roses, click the links below to explore our online range of roses and essential gardening products.
Also, check out our recent YouTube short to see what roses we have in store!
Tips, Information & Advice
