Tips on Growing Beautiful Roses #1

Please forgive me for not having been a very good blogger lately, the holiday season has really been a holiday for me, lol. We've been away for Christmas, and more holiday will be coming soon this month and next; so I'll have to say I won't be back in full throttle until February.Now in the mean time, I'll start my "Tips on Growing Beautiful Roses", which I'm sure I've kept you in suspense for long enough. Again, please forgive me for this.Getting your roses Tip #1 Do not buy your roses from a Supermarket, in fact don't buy any plants from a supermarket. Plants suffer double the stress when they have been in the air-conditioned environment of a supermarket and then transplanted into the ground when we take them home. I never buy any rose bushes, bareroot nor any plants from a Supermarket even if they look very nice and tempting.Tip #2 Try and buy roses from a rose specialist nursery in your area. I find the varieties of roses I get from the rose specialist nursery in my area much more suitable for our climate zone, they usually breed the tried and true ones which they know will do well in this area. If you don't have a rose specialist nursery in your area, try and ask at a plant nursery and do your research on what roses would be better for your area, some roses are definitely more resistant to diseases and are tougher and will do better in certain regions.Tip #3 Find out what rootstock of the roses suits your area Even roses within Australia have different rootstocks. They vary from state to state because of the climatic and soil differences. Many people mail-order from Victoria or New South Wales will find some of their roses not doing so well after a while here. The rootstock that suits Western Australia is called Fortuniana. I'm not sure what it's like in the States, but I think it doesn't hurt to do some research so you don't just look at the beautiful blooms in the catalogues and want to order them all. David Austin roses generally do very well in Australia, the David Austin roses I've got in my garden have been grafted onto the Fortuniana rootstocks here by the rose specialist nursery and they are simply superb. Please don't fret if you've already got your roses in and you find out they are of a foreign rootstock, if they are doing well, please don't dig them out. It's simply a guide for when you go and get your new roses.