8 things to know when planting a new rose garden

If you're planning to add a rose garden to your yard, there are few tips that can help ensure bountiful blooms.

If you want to plant a new rose, you have two choices.

1. Early in the spring, while roses are fully dormant, they are often available bare rooted. If you buy a bare-rooted rose but can't plant it right away, open the container and moisten the roots. Reclose and store it for up to two weeks in a dark place where the temperature stays 2°C to 4°C. Just before planting, rehydrate the roots by soaking them overnight.
2. As spring gets under way, nurseries stock roses actively growing in pots. Some may already be in bloom. Try not to disturb the roots when planting a blooming rose. Cut out the bottom of the container and set the still-packaged root ball into the planting hole. Then slit one side of the container and gently remove it before backfilling the hole with soil that has been amended with compost.

Roses must have good drainage, so check the site if you're not sure.

• Dig a hole 45 centimetres deep at the desired planting spot and fill it with water.
• If the water is gone within two hours, the site is suitable for roses.
• If water is still standing after two hours, build a raised bed for your bushes.

These often show a bulge (graft union) on the main stem just above the roots.

• In cold climates, plant grafted roses three to five centimetres deep to protect the graft union from winter cold.
• Where winters are mild, plant the roses higher, so the graft union sits 2.5 centimetres or more above the soil's surface.
• Prune off any canes that emerge from below the graft union.

• Plant little bulbs such as miniature narcissus, grape hyacinth or crocus 30 centimetres or so from the base of a big rose.
• The bulbs will bloom before the rose leafs out. Be sure to let the bulb foliage die back naturally in early summer.

Carefully check the canes on new roses.

• If most of the buds appear to face in one direction, place the plant in the planting hole so that the heavily budded side faces north.
• This trick helps produce a well-shaped mature rose bush, because strong southern sun will stimulate new growth on the other side of the plant.

Shape a basin of soil or mulch to help retain water around the rose's roots.

• In hot, dry weather, roses need 2.5 centimetres of water a week from either rain or a hose.
• Use a bubbler (available at garden centres) on the hose so the water seeps into the soil around the rose's roots without wetting foliage; damp leaves invite fungal diseases.

Most roses grow best where they get at least six hours a day of direct sun.

• Climbing roses will flower more profusely if you train them to follow a horizontal line along a trellis or frame while the canes are still young and supple.
• Forming an arch by fastening the end of a cane to a peg in the ground will encourage even more blooms.

To stimulate continued flowering of ever-blooming roses throughout the summer, drench the roots of each bush immediately after the first blooming with 30 to 60 millilitres (two to four tablespoons) of brewer's yeast dissolved in eight litres (two gallons) of water.