How to Grow Roses in the UK: A Complete Guide from R&R Roses
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If you want to grow roses that truly thrive, there's no better place to turn than the experts who spend their lives growing them. R&R Roses is a specialist rose nursery based in Bovey Tracey, Devon, growing and supplying a beautiful range of varieties direct to gardeners across the UK. Their hands-on expertise means the advice below is tried, tested, and rooted in real growing experience.
Here is their guidance on everything from planting to pruning.
Choosing the Right Location
Choose a site that gets at least 6 hours of sun a day.
If you are replacing old roses with new roses, remove as much of the old soil as possible and replace it with soil that hasn't grown roses before — the old soil will grow anything else apart from roses. An alternative to this hard work is to use Rootgrow, a natural product that helps combat rose sickness.
Planting Your Roses
Planting Potted Roses
Potted roses can be planted at any time of the year.
- Dig a hole as deep as the container and 5–6 inches wider than it to accommodate the roots.
- Remove the plant from the container and place in the hole, making sure the graft union (the stumpy bit) is at, or slightly below, soil level.
Planting Bare Root Roses
Bare root roses can only be planted between November and early March.
- Dig a hole big enough to accommodate the roots and place a handful of bone meal at the bottom, mixing it in with the soil.
- Place the rose in the ground and backfill with topsoil enriched with organic matter — garden compost, well-rotted manure, or a rose and shrub compost all work well.
- Make sure the graft union (stumpy bit) is at, or slightly below, soil level. If no graft union is visible, plant at the same level as it was in the pot.
- Water well.
Summer Deadheading
After a rose flower has finished blooming and the petals begin to fall, the remaining flower head — if pollinated — will start to form a round hip and seeds. For modern roses, this is something you don't want to encourage. Leaving hips on the plant sends a message to the rose that its job is done for the year, causing it to stop flowering and redirect all its energy into producing hips and seed instead.
Cut dead flowers off as soon as possible after flowering and the rose will reinvigorate itself, re-shoot, and re-flower. Repeat this through summer and autumn and you can expect up to 3 or 4 heavy flushes of flower from June until hard frosts on many varieties, depending on the length and temperature of the summer.
How to deadhead: Simply hold the old flower and prune off 2 or 3 leaves down — ideally to a leaf with 5 leaflets — cutting just above the leaf. The more leaves you leave, the quicker the rose will re-flower as it will have more immediate energy. For roses with large, heavy single flower heads and trusses, make sure the stem you leave is at least the thickness of a pencil at the point of cutting. This ensures the new shoot is strong enough to support the next flower head and helps prevent blooms from drooping.
Put all waste cuttings onto the bonfire or in the bin rather than leaving them on the ground around your roses — this helps keep them disease free.
Winter Pruning
Pruning is easier than most people think. The rule of thumb for established bush roses is to prune to one-third of their original size during a frost-free period — from mid-February in southern England to mid-March elsewhere. Prune out any weak or weedy growth at the same time.
Roses can be trimmed back after they finish flowering in November to prevent wind-rock, but the main pruning should be done in late winter or early spring.
If you're worried about pruning, don't be — it's quite acceptable to use a hedge trimmer.
Feeding & Mulching
To get the best from roses they need regular feeding. As the old saying goes: a well-fed rose is a healthy rose.
- Clay soil: Feed with a rose fertiliser twice a year — in March after pruning, and again after the first flush of flowers (usually late June or July).
- Sandy or chalky soil: Feed monthly from March to the end of July — a small handful of rose fertiliser will suffice.
- Loamy soil: A feeding regime somewhere between the two.
Mulching is good practice — garden compost, leaf mould, or manure will keep moisture in the ground. Bark chippings are best avoided.
Growing Roses in Containers
Roses grow well in containers, providing these guidelines are followed:
- Avoid 100% multipurpose compost. Use Sylvagrow, Westland's Rose & Shrub, or John Innes No.3. If you can't find Sylvagrow, use a 50/50 mix of John Innes No.3 and multipurpose compost.
- Add a slow-release fertiliser each year and liquid feed from mid-July until September.
- Choose a pot that is at least three times the size of the one the rose arrived in.
Watering
Roses can tolerate dry soils but will not perform at their best. Moist soil is ideal for a healthy, flourishing rose — but be careful not to waterlog it.
Water the soil only — avoid spraying the leaves, as this can invite scorching and disease. Early morning and evening are the best times to water roses.
All roses sent out by R&R Roses will have been pruned appropriately. They aim to send them out in flower where possible, but if weather or timing doesn't allow, roses will be pruned ready for their next flush.
R&R Roses — Bovey Tracey, Devon
Visit their website: randroses.co.uk
Looking for a Rose Fertiliser?
R&R Roses are clear that regular feeding makes all the difference. If you're looking for a fertiliser made with that in mind, our Dr Forest Premium Rose Fertiliser is handcrafted in small batches using British ingredients — including Yorkshire polyhalite for slow-release potassium and Scottish seaweed for natural trace minerals. No slaughterhouse waste, no fillers — just a clean, plant-based feed designed to support healthy growth and repeated flowering through the season.