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Home > In the Garden > Late Summer Roses

Late Summer Roses

August can be a great month for roses -- especially in northern climates. The repeat bloomers should be giving you lots of blooms for bouquets. Even though August can be tough on plants because it's hot and sometimes dry, if you give your roses the basics, they can do really well in spite of the heat.

While you stroll through your garden, take note of what roses look good this time of year and which ones are doing what you'd hoped they would. If a rose doesn't please you after you've given it a few years of time to prove itself, don't be afraid to replace it. Dig it out in the spring or late fall when it's dormant and give it to a friend, pot it up to sell at your garden club's plant sale next spring, or throw it in the compost pile. But, don't keep taking care of a plant that you don't like. It's taking up valuable real estate and your precious time!

August is often the time that we do severe culling of plants that just aren't worth keeping. Maybe it's when we finally have time to really look the plants over. August is also a good time to look at the new roses we planted this year. Here at the nursery, we trial new roses each year in our gardens to see if they'll survive our winters and be good garden performers. By August, they'll have put on quite a bit of growth and bloomed at least once so we can see how they look and grow, and find out how disease resistant they are. If a plant is susceptible to disease problems or just isn't a very vigorous grower, you'll sure be able to tell in August.

Many of our roses dieback to the ground each winter because of our severely cold winters. And, it can take them a month longer than other roses to rebound and regrow before they start blooming. All of our roses that are winter hardy to the crown don't really start to shine until July. And then, they bloom like crazy until frost. In August, these roses give an abundance of bloom.

August is also a good time to see where you could use some more color in your garden. It's easy to have lots of color in June and even into July. But August gardens can be short on color if you haven't included late blooming plants in your color scheme. If you're not sure what blooms in your area in August, visit a local garden center to see what they're promoting in their displays. Check for late-summer blooming perennials and shrubs that will add color and blossoms to your late-summer garden.

We love late blooming roses and appreciate them more every year. Even though they aren't giving us much in June when all the other roses are blooming their hearts out, they more than make up for it by blooming their hearts out from about mid-July until mid-September when the frost finally makes them stop.

Be sure to include night blooming plants in your garden. August is a great time to sit by the wonderfully fragrant, night- blooming Nicotianas and Four-0-Clocks and watch the hummingbird moths gather nectar. The crickets will be sure to serenade you this time of year, also.

Enjoy your late summer garden. And, don't forget to water!