Rose-growing tips for beginners

Valentine’s Day is around the corner and a rose is one of the most obvious gifts. It’s beautiful, fragrant and romantic, the perfect package. Most rose lovers remember their first rose, which means that we were all beginners at some stage.

When choosing a rose as a beginner, go for one that catches your heart, whether it is the colour, the fragrance or the shape. Of course, it helps if the rose grows easily, is disease resistant and needs very little care. After many years of helping people to find their perfect roses, these are the five that I think are winners for beginners:

• Garden Queen KORbilant (N) is a hybrid tea rose with huge, deeply perfumed pink and violet blooms that glow in the sun. It is an excellent garden rose, neat and compact, and grows to about hip height. It is also super in a container, to decorate an outdoor living area or patio. It is an Eco chic rose which means that it is disease resistant.
• Garden Princess KORspobux (P) is the daughter of Garden Queen. The blooms are just as large and fragrant, but of a soft pink shade. This rose produces masses of flowers, making a show in the garden and in the home because the pickable blooms have strong, straight stems that last well in the vase. It is compact, neat, and easy to care for.

Disease resistant and fragrant – ‘Garden Princess’. Picture: Supplied

• “Mr Lincoln” is the most fragrant red rose, and it has been a favourite for generations. The blooms are elegant, on long pickable stems. It is the eternal Valentine’s rose, a true classic. The plant is easy to grow, with many, long sturdy stems. It stands out in the garden and its petals can be used to make rose jam or perfume the bathwater.
• “Memoire” is a pure white rose that speaks of youthful innocence and purity. Every garden should have a white rose because it lights up the garden at night. This one is also strongly fragrant with long-lasting blooms. It is nice and compact, growing to hip height.
• “Saints Jubilee” (LUDshedou (P) is a winner if you want strong fragrance. The blooms are eye-catching scarlet with a contrasting creamy base. It flowers repeatedly, the neat bush grows to hip height. An ideal garden cut rose.

Highly perfumed – ‘Saints Jubilee’. Picture: Supplied

Rose-growing tips for beginners:

Roses love lots of sun. Plant the rose in the sunniest part of your garden or in a pot that gets plenty of morning sun.

• Dig a good hole. The hole should be 50cm deep (the blade of the spade) and as wide (50cm). Take all the soil out of the hole and mix it with compost, peanut shells or milled bark, some fertiliser or Vigorosa (1 measure).
• Put some of the soil back into the hole. Place the rose, still in its bag in the hole and make sure the level of the rose in the bag is the same as the top of the hole. Add or take out soil to get the correct level.
• Take the rose out of the bag. If the soil around the roots is very solid, loosen it a bit so that the roots can easily spread into the soil.
• Fill up around the rose with soil, firm it down gently and water well. Water every few days and in a month’s time, fertilise with 1 measure of Vigoros.

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