Nolina garden roses can be planted directly in the soil or in large pots or containers for your patio or balcony. Plant or stand your rose in a spot that receives at least six hours of sun a day.

When planted in the garden, your rose will survive the winter. If your rose is in a pot, protect it from frost by covering it with straw, a jute bag, bubble wrap, etc. Crucially, it should still be able to breathe and release moisture despite its winter protection.

Container-grown roses can be planted out at any time of year except during freezing weather. To achieve the best and most beautiful results, we recommend planting our garden roses in groups, preferably with three or five of the same variety per square metre.

Nolina garden roses display rapid growth. That means they require a lot of fertilisation. We recommend fertilising Nolina roses with cow manure pellets or special rose fertiliser in the spring and then again in June. This will increase your roses’ resistance to pests and diseases. Special rose fertiliser is available from your local garden centre. We also recommend applying new rose compost once a year. If your soil is sandy, your roses will need feeding more than roses grown in rich clay soil. For neutral or acid soils you can also add an annual dose of lime to the soil where your Nolina garden roses are planted to increase the pH. If you follow these recommendations, your Nolina garden roses will continue to produce a dazzling flower display year on year.

At some point, your roses may become infested with green, black or even yellow aphids. Having aphids on your roses certainly detracts from their appearance. Aphids suck sap from the plant, which can also block the flow of sap and transmit diseases.

Planting other flowering plants between your roses, such as herbs like sage or lavender, will attract a variety of beneficial organisms and ensure a natural balance between prey and predator.

Here is an eco-friendly way of controlling aphids:

• rinse the aphids off using a garden hose; spray them with a strong jet from bottom to top but avoid causing damage (e.g. leaf bruising) to the rose.
  The best time to do this is in the morning so that the plant can dry off during the day.
• You could also remove the aphids by hand. Use gloves to do this. This helps to discourage a new infestation, as the odour of dead aphids keeps other aphids away. Aphids also have certain benefits, however.
  They serve as food for ladybird larvae, each of which can gobble up as many as 100 aphids a day. In turn, the larvae serve as food for all kinds of birds.

Black spot disease is a stubborn fungal disease that causes dark purplish, brown or black spots on the leaves of roses, starting in late spring.
Later in the season, the infected leaves can turn yellow and fall off. Black spot can also occur on the young stems of the rose.

The damage to the leaves means that the rose will have less energy to survive the winter and for its growth spurt in the spring. This results in less growth and fewer flowers the following season.

Prevention

Prevention is better than cure. There are several ways to prevent or limit damage from black spot:

• Plant your roses in full sun with plenty of room for air to circulate.
• Water the roses close to the ground, keeping the leaves as dry as possible in the process• Regularly remove fallen leaves, especially in the winter; fungal spores will survive the winter in among the fallen rose leaves on the ground and will reinfect the rose in the spring. • Mulch your roses with a layer of tree bark or cocoa shells.

Control

If your roses become infected with black spot, there are several ways to control it:

• Remove the infected leaves.
• Thoroughly clean any tools after using them on infected roses.
• Wear sturdy disposable gloves so that other plants will not come into contact with the fungus.
• If your roses are severely infected, treat them with a fungicide until autumn. Your local garden centre will stock eco-friendly products that you can use.

Powdery mildew is a common fungal infection that affects garden roses. It can be identified by the whitish-grey mould on the leaves, stems and flowers. Powdery mildew mainly occurs during warm weather when there is some moisture present (dew, for example).

Prevention

Prevention is better than cure. There are several ways to prevent or limit damage from powdery mildew: • Water well in dry weather • Make sure air can circulate freely round your roses Still, damp air is perfect for the development of powdery mildew. This is also why it’s better not to plant roses too closely together. • Powdery mildew can also be prevented by spraying horsetail tea  over the roses before they become infected. It is high in silicic acid, which increases the plant’s resistance to this fungus.

Control

If your roses become infected with powdery mildew, there are several ways to control it:

• Spray the infected plants with a systemic fungicide.
• Dust the plants with sulphur.
• Cut off infected parts of the plant. Your local garden centre will stock eco-friendly products that you can use.

1. Select a spot where the rose will receive enough sunlight and has plenty of space to grow and for air to circulate.
2. Dig a hole at least 50 cm in diameter and 50 cm deep.
3. Put a layer of rose compost into the hole.
4. Place the rose in the hole, making sure the root ball remains as intact as possible.
5. Fill in the space around the root ball with soil and shake the rose carefully back and forth so that the soil comes into contact with all the roots. Then tamp down the soil firmly.
6. Water the rose regularly in the first month after planting, and make sure the root ball doesn’t dry out later on.

Pruning | when and how

It is important to prune roses. Pruning keeps them growing properly, encourages flowering and keeps them young and healthy. The best time to prune your roses back is in March before the leaves emerge. You can also prune them later but they will flower later. It is not advisable to prune roses earlier than March as night frosts can freeze young shoots and kill them. So don’t prune your roses until the risk of daytime frosts has passed. Pruning your roses before March can also make them more vulnerable to black spot and powdery mildew. The pruning method differs depending on the type of rose. Here are pruning instructions for different types of roses:

1. Prune Nolina shrub roses such as Castle® and National Parks® down to 10 cm and Renaissance® to 20 cm above the ground. This enables the plants to come back with new shoots and produce an abundance of flowers again in spring.
2. Prune Nolina climbing roses (such as Courtyard®) just enough to retain the shape and health of the plant.

Good to know

It would be advisable not to plant your roses in soil where roses have grown previously. They will fail due to so-called ‘rose fatigue’. This problem can be avoided by planting African marigolds (Tagetes) in the same spot or by digging out 60 cm of soil and replacing it with new soil.