Gardening tips | Planting rosebushes

When should rosebushes be planted ?

Rosebushes should be planted between mid-October and the beginning of May, avoiding periods of severe frost.

Where should rosebushes be planted ?

Plant your rosebushes in a sunny and well-ventilated spot.

Distance between rosebushes

When you plant rosebushes, it is often difficult to forecast how big they will grow. Here are the recommended distances between bushes to obtain a pretty flowerbed:

rosebushes with large flowers:	40/45 cm - 7 or 8 rosebushes per sq.m.
rosebushes with clustered flowers:	40/45 cm - 7 or 8 rosebushes per sq.m.
Meillandecor® - landscape rosebushes	40 / 170 cm
climbing roses:	2 m / 2.50 m
Meillandina®	20/25 cm - 7 or 8 rosebushes per sq.m.
trailing roses	should be isolated
stem roses	1 m or more
When planting hedges or borders, choose the closest distance to avoid seeing "holes" between the plants.

How to plant rosebushes ?

Rosebushes are ready to be planted. However, the root tips and branches should be trimmed (trim branches to about 20 cm long). Take this opportunity to remove any broken, mutilated or diseased sections of branches and roots so that the bushes are clean and tidy.

When planting rosebushes with large blooms, clustered blooms, Meillandécor ® and Meillandina ® with bare roots (grafted):

Begin by digging a hole sufficiently deep and wide to allow the roots to be completely unfolded and do not allow them to come into contact with the manure.

Bury the base of stalks about an inch below the soil's surface. Fill the hole up to surface level with fine soil and pack it down with your feet.
Water abundantly.
Once the soil is settled, build a protective mound by piling the earth around the base of branches. This mound should be left at least until spring (and for at least six weeks if the bushes are planted late).

Stem roses and trailing roses

Prepare a supporting rod as high as the first graft (the base of the branches). Install this rod before planting the rosebush to avoid damaging its roots.

Once it is planted, surround the trunk with a straw sleeve as high as the branches; to protect it from severe frost, protect the top of the plant with straw or wood fibres covered with waterproof paper or a plastic sheet. Leave this in place until the first flowers appear.

Climbing roses

These rosebushes need support (trellis, pillars, arch.) along which you will train the branches as they grow. If you plant them at the foot of a wall, leave about 20 cm between each plant and place the roots diagonally as shown below.

If your plant your rosebushes when the weather is sunny or windy, do not leave the plants out in the open; cover them with damp newspapers which will save them from drying out while they are waiting to be planted.

Rosebushes for plant pots and garden boxes

Use pots with holes in the base to ensure proper drainage and make sure they are deep enough to allow the roots to grow (30 cm for Meillandina®'s with bare roots; 50 cm for other rosebushes and 15 cm for adult rosebushes bought in plant pots). Lay them out as shown opposite.

When will they flower ?

Rosebushes flower the first year they are planted, EXCEPT FOR CLIMBING ROSES which take a year or two to develop their framework.