Menorca, Evergreen Gardens care and design.

Helpful tips and tricks.

The Rose Garden
Roses are very nice flowers. Remember all the advice that says you need lots of sunlight to grow roses. Well, that is correct to a degree. However, afternoon and late evening sun seems to burn leaves and petals and produce plants that need more water and nutrients to grow. Virtually every great exhibitor whose rose garden I have visited has mid to late afternoon shade. That one growing factor alone seems to lengthen stems, darken and enlarge leaves, and enhance bloom size and color in miniatures and big roses. What a difference that afternoon shade makes.

Good Ground Preparation
A bed of 8 ft x 5 ft will take 12 trees. Dig a trench a spade deep and while doing so put the soil in a barrow. Then move the barrow of soil to the other end of the bed. Fork over at the bottom of the trench and add some farmyard or horse manure. Start digging the next trench as before and put that topsoil in the first trench. Carry on digging trenches until the end and use the soil in the barrow, which should be waiting for you, to fill in the last trench. Now order your trees, the bed should settle down before planting. For the best effect, use one variety of rose to each bed.

Care
They will thrive on a little feeding of bonemeal or some organic fertiliser.
In the summer, whether in Britain or the Med, put a mulch of manure around each tree and however beautiful your blooms are try not to cut the roses with long stems in the first year.
Remember that a rose has two kinds of roots. The 'tap' roots go down deep to get water and the fine 'feeding' roots stay near the surface. Therefore when hoeing or weeding near plants, don't damage the feeding roots, only rake an inch or two into the topsoil.