I officially announce my resignation as rose gardener...

My father had a garden full of glorious roses, 400+ - he did cut them back and tie the ramblers to a frame as necessary, he fed them occasionally but mostly they were left to their own devices and were always fabulous.
He said you need to give them space and air.

Mine are rubbish compared to his - but then my roses have never had whole beds to themselves as his did. I think it's space that does it. Mine have been compromised by other plants in all my own gardens.

As an aside, he had beautiful clematis too.. the plants he struggled with were the things rabbits love!

Bluebelle Do you think by chance you are growing the rootstock
I inherited a week rose with pink flowers I now have a rambling rose with insignificant white flowers but in the autumn I have lovely red rose hips that the birds love

I once bought a rose bush off a catalogue I planted it in the garden it was the beautiful blue flower which attracted me to it
Well it didn’t flower the first year and I wasn’t surprised The second year it did flower and it was a very very mundane white rambler by which time I had no idea which catalogue I had bought it off This was many many years ago and I still have my very ordinary white rambler

canadiangran if you can grow blueberry’s which thrive then the reason your roses don’t thrive is because your soil is too acid for them.

You can give them all the . Love and attention you can, but it won’t make any difference - they simple can’t get sufficient nutrients from acidic soil, so will struggle and never give you good plants.

Ha ha ha @valchoc… is that you King Charles?

Not being smug but I don't do anything to my roses except prune them and they are lovely. They were here when we arrived so I can't take credit for planting them. We have clay soil here so maybe that's the answer.

My shrub roses are cheap ones bought from Lidl Do nothing with them except trim back in spring
They are glorious. Think it must depend on soil and where you live

Greenfly can be a pain. I spray with Roseclear at the first sign and it's usually enough for the whole year.

They are hungry - as hungry as a crop of potatoes they produce a lot of growth that you prune and take away each year, so you do need to feed them well.

I grow some beautiful roses and take cuttings.I put fish manure round the base of each plant in Spring. I am pleased with them all….all different types.You’ve got to feed them.Pruning in Autumn and Spring helps.

jojo60 is right.

Uk , prune in march, and feed, a couple of handfuls of organic chicken manure pellets and same of blood fish and bone and if you can get it, a bag of well rotted manure tipped all around the base of the plant as a mulch.

So long as the plant has enough sun I’m sure this would produce a lovely bush full of flowers. Dead head and feed with a seaweed feed every so often when you remember. I think they are just hungry plants?

Heavy clay garden here. Roses thrive, despite my minimal care. Grape vine is also a beast. But others, clematis for one, just refuse to live for long. They know what they want!

I have lots of roses in my garden and they were either bare roots from our local market (which is where my Dad used to buy his) or reduced plants from the garden centre sale. Roses are very tough once established and survive very well in my dry, south facing garden. However, they are hungry plants and need feeding. What I do (as per my Dad's teaching) is to dig a big enough hole to start with, add plenty of garden compost which will help hold water and keep the roots moist and add a handful of blood, fish and bone which will feed the plants. Newly planted roses should be watered regularly until they establish a strong root system. Then, every March after cutting them back I feed with Westlands rose food with added manure and I get lots of beautiful blooms. Gardening experts recommend feeding again in the summer to give them another boost but sometimes I don't have time for that. If you have particularly fertile soil they will probably do well without feeding. New roses need watering until they are established, but older shrubs are fairly tolerant of dry soil for short periods, Afterall they originated in the Middle East. If your roses get blackspot or other diseases it's usually because they are under stress so check you are giving them what they need. Hope this helps.

I like shrub roses and have planted 'Ballerina' in 3 different gardens. They flower early and prolifically, always look lovely and are trouble free.

I TALK TO MINE AND STROKE THEIR LEAVES . BUT I'M OLD AND BATTY but I do have exquisite blooms all summer long .

I've grown roses successfully in various gardens for many years but now just have a balcony so I'm having to grow them in large containers, without much success. I'm getting a lot of fungal disease and am going to try some Rugosas next year as I've always found these are very healthy - if that doesn't work I'm giving up on roses!

With some reservation , I've just bought some new roses for my father's garden .

Roses don't seem to do that well in it .

There is one rose , which is successful the others need a lot of nurse maiding .

He used to live a few miles away and the soil was very heavy clay .The cheapest roses that he bought from Woolworths were absolutely magnificent .

In my experience , roses don't like light soils and neither do they like being shaded or rain dripped on by trees and shrubs .

Prior to planting , I'll have a major prune and fingers crossed .

I think I will be abandoning rose growing after a particularly bad year and four 'special' roses bought in the spring are now just sticks in the ground. Yes there is blackspot in the ground but I did spray. I think the wet summer was the final straw.

My best rose is a cutting from my neighbour's climbing rose that I accidently chopped off when cutting back the overhanging branches. I simply put a small cutting straight into the ground under my pear tree and another one against the shed wall and they flourished. My David Austin rose has not done half as well.

Some of our most successful roses on poor soil were bare root ones from Woolworths.

I have two roses that predate our arrival in this house. I have no idea what they are called but both are lovely but are prone to black spot. I planted two new roses in pots this year and while they got off to a slow start their second flush of flowers has been very rewarding. I can’t say I’m a born rose grower though! I like things I don’t have to worry about!
That Canada rose looks as if might be worth one last throw of the dice CanadianGran🙂! It’s a beauty!

Callistemon21

You could do a soil test. As AGAA4 said, roses do like a clay soil; ours is clay on limestone and occasionally the roses look rather sad but we give them a severe pruning in about March and 🤞 they seem to recover.

Because our soil is clay, we can't grow blueberries which like acid soil.
You could dig the bed out deeply and add compost and manure.

I've lost a lot of plants which on't seem to like the soil here, it's an odd mix.

We have very dry sandy soil, once roses are established they tolerate dry weather quite well although we do water them in a prolonged dry spell. They won’t like being waterlogged for long periods in heavy soils.

You could do a soil test. As AGAA4 said, roses do like a clay soil; ours is clay on limestone and occasionally the roses look rather sad but we give them a severe pruning in about March and 🤞 they seem to recover.

Because our soil is clay, we can't grow blueberries which like acid soil.
You could dig the bed out deeply and add compost and manure.

I've lost a lot of plants which on't seem to like the soil here, it's an odd mix.

OH planted a large rose garden before my arrival, some varieties thrived some declined, the originals are now 12 yrs old, we are now planting the gaps with other herbaceous to maintain the colour.
This year with more rain than average it looks lovely with second flowering of the roses just beginning

Oh Hetty58 - I didn’t think of that 😫