Celebrity status comes with a sting. The greater your celebrity crush, the higher the pedestal you’ve built and the more unattainable the subject of your fandom becomes. This happens to gardeners who are rose fans. Being the celebrity flower since ancient times, the rose is the mega-star in the garden. Everyone knows who the rose is and there would be few people who wouldn’t want a garden dripping with rose blooms. And like most celebrities, with roses there’s a lot of rose myth and gossip going around, enough to make anyone new to gardening roll their eyes and run screaming from the garden centre in fear. So here to help us all grow famous roses beautifully are 3 tips for roses in your garden…

1. Roses are just plants: they may be the queen of the Plant Kingdom but they are just green growing things like every other plant. Which means that if you know what plants need to grow happily, then you’ve got them sorted. They want sunlight, fresh air, water and soil. So when you pick a spot to plant your new rose, look up and around and if it seems like a sunny, airy spot, go for it. Start digging the hole and if the soil looks a bit unappetizing, dig in some compost to lighten things up a bit (maybe buy a bag from the garden centre). Then once your plant is in the ground, water it in well and set a reminder on your phone to water at least once a week for a few weeks (more often if it’s hot).

2. Side-step the bad roses: there are lots and lots of roses to fall in love with but sadly, just like people, there are some impossibly beautiful varieties that are hard work. Keen horticulturalists who love a challenge are happy to tend to these fussy princesses but even these gardeners will often weep over too few blooms, chronic aphid infestations and the dreaded black spot. So the best approach for most of us is to be tough at the beginning and only plant and tend roses that aren’t fussy (check out the Flower Carpet® roses). I mean – seriously – who needs stress in the garden? If we pick roses that the industry gives the Big Tick, our efforts will be consistently rewarded.

3. Pruning is scary: no it isn’t. Even if you have an ancient rose bush that your great aunt has asked you to prune, it’s hard to go far wrong. Use clean secateurs or loppers. Take two thirds off or just give it a light once-over. It’s a green hair cut and like hair, it will grow back. And each time you prune, you will have the confidence to play around a little more. There is only one tip to keep in mind: most rose bushes are a splice of one rose for the root section and one for the bush above. Without getting too far into the science behind grafted roses, it’s good to know because you want to keep your pruning above the bulgy graft mark on the main stem of the rose bush or you might lose the fancy rose that blooms on the top. And if you spot some serious sucker shoot coming out of the bottom bit – make sure you take them off. Having said all that, if you grow a rose like Flower Carpet® roses you don’t have to think about any of this because these roses are grown on their own roots – they are all one single plant so you can cut them wherever you like.