How do I look after a rose bush?

[Jodidi]

I am a VERY novice gardener, I manage to kill most plants We normally buy bedding plants to go in our one flower bed in the spring/summer and we can cope with planting bulbs but that's about as difficult as we go.

We planted a rose bush at Easter and I am keen to look after this properly. We've had flowers, now there is a new, taller stem with another 5 buds that look ready to flower in the next week or so. My question is what to do with it once the flowers have gone? Do I prune it? If so, where do I prune? Are there different ways to prune it to make it grow in different directions? We'd like it to stay quite low but bushy with quite a few flowers if that's possible. Am I supposed to have been feeding it at all?

Feed twice a year. Next one September. I think you prune in November to March, cut stems to 18 inches tall, it will help them to bush out.

Remember to dead head after every flower.

Thank you. That sounds simple enough for even me to follow.

Disagree about feeding advice though. First feed late March/early April, second feed when first flush of flowers has finished, June/July. Feeding in September is too late in the season and whilst you may get a few flowers (which will keep coming until first frosts for repeat flowering roses), the plant needs feeding when you want flower buds to form and that it is not the case in September.

Keep deadheading as the flowers are finished to encourage new blooms, cut back by about a third at the end of the season and then by about another third at the start of the season, just as new growth appears. This cen be anytime from end of Feb to early April, depending on where you live and the kind of winter we are having. For the early Spring cut, cut back to an outword facing bud and keep the centre of the bush clear. The rose bush will look very sparse if done correctly but will perform much better.

For more detail check out RHS website and also specialist rose growers like David Austin, Peter Beale (Classic roses).

outward not outword, doh!

I was somewhat shocked by a professional parks and gardens type with thousands of roses to look afer that they just cut the roses off with a hedge trimmer down to 18 inches in late Autumn and put plenty of manure on to keep them over winter. Dead heading regularly over summer months does bring forward new flowers.

Its pretty hard to kill a rose once it gets established - they have a massively deep root and digging an old one up is a mamoth task.

Its pretty hard to kill a rose once it gets established This is what I needed to hear. I have killed so many plants I can't even begin to count them I really want this one to survive.
We've been deadheading it so at least we've been doing something right.

My mum says you have to have pruned roses by St Patrick's Day - 17th March. In my old house I had loads of roses ad used to prune them December or Jamuary as I had a north east facing garden and I thought I'd give the new growth a head start.