My First Rose Growing Experience

by Cody A.
(Pittsburgh, PA.)

Oh I've most certainly read all of the good and bad stories about growing roses from what can go wrong with soils to the bugs that can devastate the roses. Of course, none of that bad stuff could happen to me. After all, I've heard all kinds of hype and hoopla about all kinds of plants that I grow, only to find out that they thrive without all of the care the "experts" say that they need.

I guess roses are a bit different.

I bought a couple of healthy climbing rose plants that I envisioned covering my arbor in just a couple of years. The winters have been mild so I didn't worry too much about the canes that were established the first year. Well, they died. Almost all of the plants actually. However some of it did survive and had a phenomenal growth rate the second year.

Both years I let the plant bloom to enjoy a few roses. The color was beautiful, but I made the mistake of picking a plant where the the bloom would deteriorate too quickly.

Another thing I found out was that deer love the flowers. I never considered that they would walk up and eat all of my rose blooms. I know about some other plants that they eat such as my hostas. They eat them down to the ground! But I didn't know that they liked roses.

I'm hoping that the canes that made it half way up the arbor last year will survive to grow more this year. I looked at the plant just today in January, and it doesn't look good.

Roses on eBay