The first summer roses in my garden are now coming into bloom and I can hardly wait to breathe their sweet scent. The beauty of flower and fragrance has inspired many gardeners for hundreds of years. While not the easiest of plants to grow, roses reward the gardener for the effort made with luscious blooms that can take your breath away.

Some of our favourite tips for growing great roses are as follows.

When you purchase a new rose bush choose varieties carefully. Some are more fragrant, more disease resistant or have unusual colour combinations. Look for No. 1 Grade roses and pick a healthy plant that shows good vigour.

When you go home to plant your new rose, choose a sunny location (min 6 hours). Roses don't like a lot of competition so be sure the place you choose doesn't have large trees very close that are going to hog all the nutrients, water, and sunlight.

Try not to plant in the hottest time of the day and water your new rose bush in the pot before you plant it. Roses are heavy feeders so be generous with nutrients and soil amendments.

I recommend the following for planting new roses:

½ cup bone meal

½ cup alfalfa meal

½ cup fish meal

2 shovelfuls of peat moss

2 shovelfuls of manure or compost

For many of us, fragrant is a must for roses.  We can’t stop ourselves from sticking our noses into a rose, closing our eyes, as we innately know by cutting off our sense of sight only serves to enhance our sense of smell.   When we are rewarded with a fragrance we breathe it in deep and nod as if confirming to ourselves all is the way it should be.  It is then that we usually smile and want to share our discovery.  Stop and smell the roses… perhaps this little old saying is more fitting in our busy world than ever.

Each spring I am amazed by the selection and qualities of the new plants for our west coast gardens.  I spend much of the fall and winter sorting through to choose the very best ones for our nursery; the ones that suit Campbell River and the ones that really sound like improvements on old favourites.  For 2013 we have many new items so let's get started!

... and Buddleia 'Peach Cobbler Flutterby Grande'

Two new repeat blooming buddleias that are more compact and bushy than the original in fresh new colours.  Hardy to zone 5 these buddleias will mature in your garden to 4' tall and up to 5' wide.  The flowering is also heavier with extra large flowers of either pink or peach that butterflies love.

Sugar Moon

 Hybrid Tea - Super fragrant pure white

This rose is a beauty!  I was lucky enough to get to trial this rose last year and it is the nicest fragrant white rose I have ever come across.  Lovely deep, dark green leaves compliment the classic white roses.  Sugar Moon showed good vigor and good re-bloom but it will be the fragrance you will love...  

Ketchup & Mustard

Floribunda - Ketchup red/mustard yellow bicolour

One of the easiest ways to add a splash of colour to your summer garden is with Flower Carpet Roses. If you don't have a Carpet Rose in your garden, you might be surprised to find out just how easy they are to grow and just how colorful and vigorous they are.

The original 'Pink' Flower Carpet is still my favourite. It is the most vigorous and it is a deep, hot pink that is outstanding. I've seen them planted in commercial plantings, barrels, hedged and mixed into flower borders and they always seem to steal the show. Their glossy green leaves are very disease resistant which is what sets them apart from most other roses. Carpet Rose are also available in white, yellow, coral and red.

Pruning for Flower Carpet Roses is a snap. Whether it is your late winter clean up, or you are dead heading the first flush of roses, just bring out your hedging shears and trim the bush back to the desired size. No fussy 'where to snip' decisions to be made. New flowers continue through the summer until frost.

WPlant your Flower Carpet Roses with a half a cup of bonemeal and some steer manure in a part sun to full sun position and water deeply with 'Transplanter'.

Enjoy!

...Experience the Joy of Gardening!

Like most gardeners, as the seasons go, my interest moves from the delicate winter bloomers, to the bulbs that herald early spring, to the joyful promise of planting annuals and so on, and so on. As each season passes I forget how I loved the very first blooms of the plant I am now deadheading and I long for the first blooms of the plants of the next season.

I watch in wonder as the first flush of roses come and now I busy myself cutting roses for bouquets indoors so my flowers continue to form and please me. Oh, we are the fickle ones aren't we, but I simply can't help it; I love my garden, the structure of it, the striking foliage combinations, the fragrances, but most of all I love the blooms. Now that summer is here the blooms are no longer delicate little bursts of colour amazing us on cool and frosty mornings but rather magnificently voluptuous blossoms that awe us with their heady beauty.

Petunia 'Black Velvet' 

Brand new and velvety black;this petunia is going to get your creative side excited!What will you combine it with? Tiny white flowers of bacopa or 'Diamond Frost' Euphorbia, shimmery pink Osteospermum, or dramatic chartreuse potato vine? It's the little black dress of petunias. Goes with everything and adds drama to all occasions.

Colorific  

Very large flowers of peach, coral and salmon tintedwith scarlet and burgundy edges make each flower interestingand uniquely beautiful. Strong long stems with a light fragrance make it a lovely cutting rose also.

Dick Clark