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Tips for Growing Roses Outside Your Southern California Home
Written by Kelsey W.
When you imagine a garden full of roses, a misty day somewhere in the English countryside might come to mind, but the British Isles aren’t the only place where roses love to live. In fact, the warmer climes of Southern California provide some of the best growing conditions for several varieties of roses.
If you’re interested in taking your gardening game up a notch and trying your hand with a plant that will require a little more work than an occasional visit with a watering can, the rose is an excellent plant to choose, especially as they are so varied in color and appearance.
Some varieties of roses definitely fare better than others in SoCal. However, once you’ve settled on a particular variety for your home, all it takes is learning about the proper care, feeding, and placement to grow beautiful roses.
Let’s explore some of the varieties of roses that love Southern California and the best practices for keeping those roses in beautiful, happy condition.
The Big Rose Topics: Sun, Soil, and Spacing
One of the most valuable things you can do to create a successful rose garden is to decide the placement of your roses before you bring them home from your local SoCal garden center. Here are a few topics you’ll need to consider while mapping out your rose plan.
Sunlight: Roses Love the Sun in Southern California – Even in the Desert
The most important aspect of planting roses around your home is making sure they get the right amount of sun. It’s always best to err on the side of too much sunlight rather than not enough. Even if your home sits near or in the desert, your roses will want to feel the sun on their faces every day.
The general consensus for growing roses in Southern California is that they need at least six to eight hours of sunlight every day. But that’s really a minimum. The only caveat is that roses don’t enjoy getting whipped around by the wind, so make sure they’re protected from any gusty areas.
Soil: Roses Need Nutrient-Rich Soil That Isn’t Flooded
One of the tricky parts about growing roses is getting the soil right. Roses love nutrients in their soil, but it’s important that you don’t always flood the area with plant food-infused water in order to deliver those nutrients. Yes, you can use liquid food to feed your roses, but it shouldn’t result in a flooded bed of soil.
Instead, it’s better to include some mulch around the roses, particularly if you’re in one of the dryer areas of Southern California, so the roses can retain the nutrient-rich moisture without sitting in a puddle of water. Roses are a little picky about their water and want regular watering without feeling a deluge that results in a flood.
Spacing: Check the Growth Expectations for Your Future Roess
After you figure out which types of roses you want for your home, you’ll need to make sure that you place them for optimal rose happiness, as well as the best possible appearance once the roses are grown. You can certainly trim your roses each year to a size that pleases you, but it’s also helpful to understand the maximum size and spread of your roses once they’re fully grown.
For example, perhaps you chose the Abraham Darby Rose, which is a rose with high maintenance needs and one that gardeners might place in the advanced category. These roses may grow up to four feet tall and have the potential to grow four feet wide, which will influence your placement.
When Do You Bring New Roses to Your Home?
Roess can take a few years to become established in your yard, but you can transplant container roses to your yard in the spring and enjoy some summer blooms as long as the plants are already a little established. Planting in the fall is also an option, as the roses will spend the winter getting used to your yard.
Truthfully, you could probably put roses into the ground at almost any time in Southern California, as long as you’re not in an area where it regularly freezes (so along the coast and somewhat inland), but you’ll still get the best results if you plant your roses in the fall or in the early spring.
Caring for Roses Once They’re Established
After you’ve chosen your roses and created a beautiful color palette for your Southern California rose garden, you’ll want to adopt a regular care cycle that will keep your roses happy in every season. Roses aren’t a “set it and forget it” sort of plant, and they do require regular attention and care in every season.
Your three main responsibilities in caring for roses in SoCal are fertilizing (feeding), watering, and pruning. The easiest of these three is watering, and your schedule will likely depend on the season and the amount of water the roses are already getting from the rain.
Most importantly, roses should never get parched. It’s better to water them once too often than to let them get too dry. However, you don’t want to let them sit in a pool of water, either. Usually, the best schedule to adopt will be one where you water them every two or three days. Always water them at the base.
As far as feeding goes, your roses are hungry and will not thrive unless you feed them. The most important time to feed them is right before they start to bloom. Usually, the roses will bloom right before the weather warms up in the spring, but you never really know in Southern California.
Truthfully, roses can sometimes get a mind of their own and bloom in whatever season they see fit. If this happens, don’t worry; it’s just a product of living in a climate where the weather isn’t always so predictable. But that brings us to our last facet of essential rose care:
Pruning
It’s not the easiest thing to walk up to a beautiful plant and cut pieces off of it, but that’s exactly what you need to do to keep your roses happy. As a rule of thumb, try to avoid pruning your roses in the summer. The leggy pieces that don’t look so healthy actually protect the plant during the hottest months of the year.
The best times to take your pruning shears to your roses are the months of January and February. Most rose plants will lose their leaves for the winter, and the consistency of their sap changes as a way to protect the plant from colder temperatures (even though we don’t always get them in SoCal).
Always prune your roses with a pair of clean and sharp pruning shears because you don’t want your rose to get sick from any bacteria or contaminants on the shears. Avoid cutting anything below the bud union, which is the round bulb-like part of the rose plant, near the base.
You can remove any small or damaged branches on the plant, as well as dead leaves and sucker canes, which are branches that grow low on the plant and distract from the natural shape and growth of the rest of the branches. You can add a pruning sealer to keep the cuts from getting infected.
Beautiful Southern California Rose Varieties
With the proper care, you can grow almost any rose beautifully in Southern California, but some roses are easier to grow in certain areas of SoCal. If you’re quite near the coast and want a rose plant that produces big clusters of roses, you might want to choose a “floribunda” rose.
There’s a particularly beautiful yellow floribunda known as the Julia Child that smells beautiful. If you’re far inland in SoCal, another option from the floribunda variety is the Ketchup and Mustard rose, which is a vibrant combination of red and yellow (hence the name). With consistent care, these roses can live in a desert garden.
Another fun option, especially for the positive growing climate of Southern California, is a rose shrub. These varieties were developed in England, but they have the potential to grow into a massive and beautiful shrub in SoCal.
You might see them referred to as “landscape shrub roses” at your garden center. One of the best options is the Carefree Wonder rose, which is one of the easiest options for growing roses in your SoCal yard. The foliage of these beautiful bushes is dark green, and the flowers are bright pink. Like regular roses, these bushes like pruning in the winter.
Make Roses a Part of Your SoCal Garden with Green Thumb Nursery
Take your gardening game to the next level by planting roses this year in your yard. Growing roses is truly an adventure, and Green Thumb Nursery is ready to help you get started creating a beautiful SoCal rose garden. Come by one of our Southern California garden centers for advice on the best SoCal rose varieties to plant, as well as for all the gardening accessories you need to grow beautiful, healthy rose plants.
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