The Arrival Of The Long Stemmed Roses!

If you are looking to grow your own roses for a wedding, or similar event, if you plan ahead you can grow a huge bouquet of long stemmed roses. Prune your rose to about 14- 16 inches in the early spring before the leaves sprout, it will force the plant to "grow" and put out more roses and longer stems.

Here is a picture of what the rose looked like before the buds appeared.

Here is a picture after...you can see how long the stems have grown.

I have done this trick with many different rose bushes and it always works. The rose should be well established, over 2 years old. This bush has 122 buds, which is a lot for a tea rose. If you do a floribunda, you will get tons of clusters. This rose at bloom time was 55" high, so it grew from 16 to 55. If you don't prune that drastically you will get half the buds and half the growth. People who have seen me prune this way, think I am killing the rose, but trust me, it works.

If want the stems to be extra sturdy, feed them organically during the growing season with chopped up banana peels, coffee grounds and fine crushed egg shells.

Thanks for visiting, I hope you had a great long weekend!

Liz