While many gardeners in Southern Ontario follow the popular planting date of May 24th, when we’re usually safe from frost, you may be surprised to know that April is not too early for certain plants!

Once the ground has thawed and is workable, there’s plenty you can start growing. In Zones 6a-6b, this usually happens around four weeks before May 24th. While frost is still a possibility, many cold-tolerant plants not only survive a light frost but thrive in cooler weather. To check if the soil is ready, simply dig up a handful and squeeze it. If it sticks together, it’s too wet to work with—wait a few more days for it to dry out. Once the soil is ready, it’s time to plant those cool-weather crops!

Cool Weather Vegetables

Radishes: Radishes are fast-growing and perfect for planting in April because they love cooler weather. Sow them directly from seed.

Peas: April is the perfect time to plant peas outdoors as soon as the soil is workable. Soak pea seeds in water for 8-10 hours before planting them to help germination.

Lettuce, Spinach, Arugula, Asian Greens (Tatsoi, Mizuna, Pak Choi and Leaf Mustard) : It’s best to sow seeds for leafy greens or plant seedlings early in the spring as they will grow quickly in cool weather. Plant more seeds or seedlings every 10-14 days for a succession of greens until hotter temperatures make them bolt (go to seed) and become bitter.

Potatoes: Seed potatoes can be planted in mid to late April as soon as the soil is workable.

Onions: Plant onion sets or seedlings that have already been started in early spring and enjoy a harvest in late summer or fall.

Carrots: Plant carrot seeds in April, and they will be ready for harvest later in the spring or early summer. They take a little longer to grow, but planting early gives you a head start. You will enjoy carrots all summer long by planting more seeds a few weeks later.

Tip: It’s a good idea to keep some frost protection like row cover handy for lettuce, peas and spinach just in case the temperatures dip below zero.

Bonus: Many garden pests, like earwigs and slugs, are still overwintering in April and won’t feast on your tender plants.

Cold-Tolerant Flowers

Pansies: Add a pot of Pansies to cheer up a front porch, and it instantly feels like spring! Plants can go into a sunny spot in the ground when temperatures reach 7-21 celsius and are regularly staying above freezing.

Violas: These cool-weather flowers can withstand light frosts and are perfect for containers or for planting in garden beds

Gladiolas: Even though the weather is still cool, this resilient summer-blooming bulb can be planted in a sunny area of the garden in April. 

Bonus: Pansies and Violas also love cool weather in the fall.

Perennials, Trees and Shrubs

Two to three weeks before the threat of frost has passed, many potted perennials, shrubs and trees, either dormant or with leaves, can be planted. (If you’re not purchasing from us, be sure to check whether the plants were grown outdoors or acclimated to cooler temperatures and ensure they’re hardy enough for Southern Ontario.)

While perennials, trees, and shrubs can be planted throughout spring, summer, or fall, the combination of warming soil and increased rainfall in spring creates the perfect conditions for successful transplanting.

Come into Eising Garden Centre to see the many seeds and plants available for you to add to your garden in April!

Additional Resource: Landscape Ontario provides an excellent online Tree Planting Guide.

If you think a small space and a small garden are limiting when it comes to shrub choices, think again! Colour and texture, structure and seasonal interest are all available in many small shrubs. Whether you’re looking for beautiful blooms or evergreen foliage, you’ll love what our favourite small shrubs have to offer!

Follow the 5 links for more on our 5 favourites!

My Monet Purple Effect Weigela - Weigela florida

A deciduous shrub that’s deer resistant, colourful and low growing. This plant checks lots of boxes!! Variegated mint green and cream foliage with purple tones and pink blossoms, it makes a great companion to perennials, and as an edging plant. My Monet Purple Effect Weigela grows 18” to 2 ½ feet tall and wide in partial or full sun.

Little Gem Spruce - Picea abies ‘Little Gem’

This compact evergreen has dark green needles, making it attractive all year round. Its pyramidal shape makes it a great choice as an accent feature or in a border. It’s drought-tolerant and requires little care, making it a very appealing low-maintenance choice! Little Gem reaches a mature height of 10” to 1’ and a spread of 1’ to 2’. Plant this shrub in full sun.

Blue Star Juniper - Juniperus squamata ‘Blue Star’

Sun-loving and slow-growing, Blue Star Juniper graces the garden with steel blue evergreen foliage that’s a beautiful contrast to many plants. It’s also drought-tolerant and requires very little pruning, making it an easy to care for naturally small shrub. Growing 1 to 3’ tall and 1 ½ to 3’ wide, its shape makes it great as ground cover or as an edging plant.

Bluebeard - Caryopteris

Classified as a shrub or as a woody perennial, either way, it deserves to be on this list. Bluebeard loves full sun and grows anywhere from 2 to 4’ in a compact mound. Sweetly scented and long blooming, it attracts all the pollinators: bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. Bluebeard foliage and blooms come in various colours depending on the variety, so it’s easy to fit into your landscape plans.

Inkberry Holly - IIlex glabra

Native to North America, Inkberry has lots to love. It looks similar to Boxwood and can be trimmed to shape, but this slow-growing evergreen also forms a tidy mound, and it blooms in the Spring! It will grow in full to part sun, and smaller varieties reach 3 to 4’ high.

While this list contains 5 of our favourites, we have lots more to offer in the garden centre. Come by and take a look! Discover how growing small shrubs in containers or small spaces adds beauty and texture, enhancing your garden bed, patio or balcony.

TIP: April and May are the best months to plant shrubs in Southern Ontario.

The sight and sound of water in the garden can bring life to its surroundings and a sense of calm that we all seem to need right now. 

A water garden can be created in many forms with varying degrees of simplicity or complexity. A small water feature in a half-barrel-sized container on a patio. A small to medium one in a preformed fibreglass pool or pond in the ground. An old stock tank or bathtub. A pool liner laid over a hole dug into the ground. A natural pond fed by springs. A fountain, stream or waterfall for moving water. Planning is key, but there are endless options! Just be sure to check any local zoning restrictions before you build.

Whatever the pond form, water can immediately attract nature even in the middle of an urban space. Dragonflies, birds, and frogs will show up to sip, dip and enjoy!

Water gardens also provide a space to garden with plants that bring unexpected beauty and intrigue. It’s a whole new world of native and tropical, annual and perennial plants that exist in the water or on the edge of a pond.

Three Categories of Water Garden Plants

1. Underwater or Submerged Plants

Oxygenating plants are not showy but are also found underwater, and they are essential. Anyone who owns an aquarium knows the importance of good oxygenators to improve water quality. They compete with algae for nutrients and win the battle each time. Elodia canadensis looks a little bit like seaweed, but it’s a hardy and vigorous water perennial here in southern Ontario, which makes it a very popular choice.

2. Floating

3. Shallow water or Marginal Plants

This is the bog folks! The plants grown here are also known as marginal plants. While the term bog doesn’t conjure dreamy Monet water lily paintings, the plants in this area of a pond or wetland can be beautiful, interesting and beneficial. Marginal plants and moisture-loving perennials, grow in the soil just below the water's surface or in consistently wet soil. They are beneficial because they keep water clear by keeping algae at bay. However, as previously mentioned there are many beautiful and interesting plants that grow on the pond's edge.

Here are just a few:

Growing plants in and around a water garden can be a very satisfying project. Curious guests will love to chat about it and ask questions making it a great conversation starter. It also provides a peaceful spot in your backyard to relax and watch the dragonflies whiz by! 

It’s the question we probably hear the most when it comes to flower gardens…”What can I buy that will flower all season long?” While some annuals bloom for a very long time, no plant will bloom from early Spring to late Fall, and no vegetable plant will produce for that duration either. The solution? Succession Planting! It’s a simple strategy that maximizes the time your garden is blooming or producing vegetables.

What is Succession Planting?

Plant early (earlier than you think) and plant things in succession that thrive in the current weather conditions - right up until there is a hard frost. Simply plan to plant another crop or flower once one is harvested or finished blooming. Many gardeners here in southern Ontario wait until the May 24th weekend to plant everything - all at once. Succession gardening staggers planting times so there is a continuous harvest of vegetables or an everchanging series of blooming flowers. While it takes a little more planning, the results are worth it.

A Succession of Blooms

The best way to ensure a parade of colour in your garden is to choose a variety of annuals, perennials, and biennials that bloom at different times. There is a notion that a garden can only have annual flowers or just perennials, but the best results come from a mix of both. You’re allowed to mix them together! Most annuals bloom during the heat of the summer, but perennial flowers can extend the season for you by blooming in early spring or in the fall. A list of perennial bloom times can be found in this Landscape Ontario article to help you choose your plants.

Some flowering plants, like pansies, love cooler weather and are easy to purchase in the spring. A little planning and planting in the fall will provide a flush of colour from Spring bulbs like Daffodils, Crocus, and Hyacinth. Spring bulbs look great alongside early-blooming shrubs or trees like Canada Serviceberry and Forsythia. 

April or early May is also an excellent time to directly sow annual flowers like sunflowers, nasturtium, borage, and herbs like cilantro and dill to give them a head start.

Cool Weather Veggies

It’s surprising how many vegetables thrive in cool weather and withstand light frost. Keep tender plants indoors until the third week of April and slowly harden them off, but get outdoors any time in April and begin directly sowing fast-growing cool crops like leafy greens, root vegetables, and some herbs. 

Lettuce planted in late spring will tend to “bolt” and taste bitter once hotter temperatures arrive. Lettuce loves cooler conditions. So you don’t have to wait until May 24th to sow lettuce and other vegetables. Which Vegetables? We have a list of examples for you in our article: Starting Seeds Indoors and Cold Weather Crops. Starting early means you can harvest a whole crop of vegetables before you plant heat-loving crops like peppers and tomatoes.

Sow All Season

If you’ve ever been overwhelmed by planting too much of one crop at once, you will love succession gardening. While you may be able to freeze a batch of 2,000 string beans from the entire packet of seeds you planted in one go, sometimes stretching out the harvest is nice. Plant smaller batches of beans, peas, and herbs like cilantro, dill, and basil every three weeks to ensure continuous summer harvests. This approach is also known as interval gardening. 

Sow cool-weather crops like leaf lettuce, Swiss Chard, and Radishes in April or early May and again in September.

Continuous Harvest

Once your early Spring vegetables like lettuce, peas and radishes have been harvested, it’s time to sow your second crop of cool-weather veggies for harvesting in the Fall. Do you know veggies like parsnips, Brussels sprouts, peas, and kale have more flavour after a mild frost?! A mild winter this year meant we were still harvesting some Brussels sprouts in December.

Double Up

Another tip is to plant things that grow well together. For example, plant seeds for a root crop like carrots below your tomato plants, peas or bush beans in the vegetable garden. The carrot crop will be next after the tomatoes, peas or beans are done for the season. There are many combinations like this - tomatoes and basil, kale and dill, lettuce and beets, broccoli and borage, just to name a few. Doing this helps to increase the production of your plot of land and keeps the soil covered, which is always better for soil health.

One final strategy for flower succession planting is to use containers. Consider placing a well-positioned pot of annual blooms beside perennial plants resting after flowering. 

Once you get started, researching companion plant combinations like these can be a fun game. These combinations will extend the time you can enjoy lots of colourful blooms and increase the amount of vegetables a garden can produce! 

Come along on a little journey with me and imagine this… It’s Springtime. The sun shines, and the air finally feels warmer after a long, grey winter. You take a little trip to your favourite garden centre and find that special plant you’ve been reading about and hoping for. Of course, you buy the plant, take it home, and proudly place it on your sunny patio on this beautiful day. Two more sunny days go by, and the plant does not look good at all. It seems to be dying, so you give it lots of water, but that makes no difference. It is in fact dying. So disappointing! How could this be happening?

In our excitement to get outdoors and plant flowers, or add greenery, we forget that the plants we’ve been growing indoors or inside a greenhouse, aren’t used to the elements in the great outdoors. They’ve been sheltered indoors, out of the wind and direct sun, and watered and fertilized regularly with the utmost attention. They’ve been pampered in a plant spa and are quite literally hothouse flowers! Being plunked outside afterwards is the equivalent of us going outside in a bathing suit with no sunblock on for the first sunny, warm days of Spring, exposing our lily-white skin that’s been covered up by a parka all winter long!

Red, sunburned skin is not a great image, but hopefully, this comparison helps to explain the importance of transitioning or hardening off plants. Much like us, indoor plants need to be gradually exposed to the elements and given protection in the process.

The same will be true if you have planted seeds indoors or purchased greenhouse-grown seedlings. Seedlings grown in a greenhouse, a sunny window, or under grow lights in your home need up to 14 days to acclimate to being moved from their cozy indoor space to the great outdoors.

What is Hardening Off?

Hardening off ensures that you will not lose another plant or seedling! It’s a sensible process for all the plants you’re moving from indoors to outdoors. By helping plants or seedlings to gradually toughen to withstand the elements, you prevent transplant shock, which can cause your plants to be stunted or, worse, die.

To ensure success, the process of hardening off takes up to 14 days, so you will want to begin two weeks before transplanting plants and seedlings into your garden. Houseplants may only need 7 to 10 days, but tender, tiny seedlings need the full two weeks to strengthen and get used to their new environments.

When to Harden Off

Cold-weather plants like lettuce, kale, pansies, violas, dianthus, and potted or forced spring bulbs can be hardened off once daytime temperatures consistently reach 5 Celsius, usually in April in southern Ontario.

Perennial plants, tropical houseplants, and heat-loving seedlings like most annual flowers, tomatoes, peppers, and basil should wait until temperatures are around 7-10 Celsius to begin hardening off. For vegetables and annual flowers, start hardening off around May 10 here in Norfolk County if your target is planting seedlings around May 24th.

Successfully Hardening Off Your Seedlings and Plants

Days 1 and 2

Begin on a day that is optimally warm (At least 5 Celsius for cold-weather-tolerant plants, 7 Celsius for heat-loving plants, or 15 Celsius for tropical houseplants) and place your plants or seedlings outside in full shade and protected from the wind.

If you don't have a wind-sheltered area in the shade, putting your plants in an open cardboard box is a good way to protect them from the wind at this stage.

Leave them in this protected area for 1-2 hours before returning them indoors.

Days 3 to 5

Each day, gradually increase the length of time your plants are outside and begin to place them in an area where they will get dappled shade and some wind.

Pay close attention to watering while you’re hardening off your plants as they will require more frequent watering.

Days 6 to 10

On day 6, start to increase your plant’s exposure to direct sunlight by placing them in the morning sun, which is less intense than the afternoon sun.

Begin to leave them outside overnight from this point on unless the temperature is expected to drop below 7 Celcius.

Days 10 to 14

After 10 days of acclimation, it is safe to move houseplants that require more sun to a location that meets their needs.

After 14 days of acclimation, it’s safe to transplant seedlings to their place in the garden or to large pots if you’re growing in containers.

As soon as your plants are transplanted, be sure to water them well! This will help them transition and eliminate air pockets in the soil that can harm the roots.

If the temperature drops and a fluke, unexpected freeze is forecasted after you’ve planted everything, cover your plants with row cover, cloches (you can use plastic water jugs with the bottom cut out, just leave the screw cap off to act as a vent), or cardboard boxes to protect them.

To summarize, when Spring arrives, protect your skin with sunblock, and harden off your plants before you move them outdoors!

Ah, the smell of fresh greenery! There’s something extra special about decorating for Christmas with fresh evergreen branches.

The holidays are the best time to bring the outdoors in. After all, what better time is there than when we’re longing for some green in a winter world that’s predominantly brown, or snowy white? Or, you may simply be searching for the nostalgic smell and sight of fresh holiday decorations.

In southern Ontario, evergreens last the longest outdoors during our winters. But how do you keep your pine, cedar, fir and spruce branches looking fresh and lovely all season long? Give these tips a try.

Start Fresh

Whether you are making decorations, or buying them, start with freshly harvested branches.

Cut each stem on an angle to increase the water absorption rate, and place the stems in a bucket of water for several hours before using them. As you’re cutting each branch, be sure to check for any pests first.

At this point, your greens are ready to arrange into wreaths, swags, garlands, containers or whatever you’re making.

For indoor arrangements, oasis or floral foam that has been soaked in water, and secured in your container creates a solid base to work with. Fill outdoor urns or containers with moist soil, or a combination of oasis and damp soil to insert the branches into and hold them in place. Both methods will help to keep your plant material hydrated.

Prevent Dehydration

Before adding decorative elements, lightly mist your evergreen arrangements, wreaths, swags and garlands with an anti-dessicant spray. Doing this provides a protective barrier and reduces moisture loss.

Placement and Care

Keep outdoor arrangements sheltered from direct sunlight and strong winds if possible. Likewise, keep indoor arrangements away from sunlight, and heat sources like vents and radiators.

Evergreens can dry out very quickly. Keep arrangements watered (for outdoor arrangements, water when the soil is not frozen), and mist garlands, swags, and wreaths with water frequently. Avoid overwatering though! It’s a good idea to water or mist in the morning so that any excess moisture evaporates or can be drained if not absorbed after about an hour.

Following these steps should keep your decorations looking fresh through the holiday season and beyond!

If you would like more help with homemade decorating ideas, check out our DIY Fresh Evergreen Decor guide and our Holiday Home Decor Ideas.

Or, stop by and see us at Eising Greenhouses and Garden Centre in Simcoe for inspiration and choose from our selection of:

• fresh greenery branches
• undecorated arrangements
• decorated arrangements
• Poinsettias
• Christmas Cactus
• Kalanchoe
• Amaryllis
• Paperwhites and more!

If you’re heading to a holiday party, we have lots to choose from as gifts, or items to add to your arrangements, or to fill a spot in your home that needs a little extra holiday cheer!

In this case, the plants Hens and Chicks, not the feathery friends.

Sempervivum, also known as Hens and Chicks or Houseleek, are a group of succulents that are becoming very popular in Southern Ontario. Here’s why these cold hardy perennial plants are gaining attention.

Low-maintenance

Low-maintenance is the item on everyone’s checklist, right? Hens and Chicks are known for being no-fuss. Sempervivum require very little soil, fertilizer or water. They’re sun-loving, hardy, resilient, and drought-tolerant. When you don’t have a lot of time to garden, you’ll be grateful that your Hens and Chicks need minimal care once they become established.

Versatile, and Did We Mention Low-maintenance?

Sempervivum will grow in full sun to partial shade, and average to poor soil as long as they have good drainage. They will manage just fine in poor soil and harsh conditions like heat and cold! This makes Hens and Chicks the perfect candidate for that spot in the garden where nothing else wants to grow. The spot that’s too hot, or too windy, the soil is rocky or gritty and not ideal or it’s eroding, like on a slope.

These rugged warriors can be grown on rooftops, ledges, walls, in rock gardens, hanging baskets, troughs and containers. Just make sure there are drainage holes. Too much water is their only enemy and will result in their roots rotting.

Chick Charms

While most Hens and Chicks are low-growing, 8-15 cm tall, they will all spread 30 cm and more - as much as you like, really. This is because they produce small plants, known as “chicks” or offsets around the main plant. The “Chick Charms”. Chicks can also be transplanted to start a whole new plant.

Tough and Beautiful

As a ground cover, Sempervivum can add visual interest and contrast to a border of annuals or perennials.

While they’re known for their pretty rosette-shaped clusters of foliage, you may not realize that Hens and Chicks also come in a variety of colours, and produce stunning blooms in summer.

Once a plant blooms, deadhead the flower and pull up the soft parent plant with it. The plant dies when it blooms, but new chicks will grow and replace it.

Hens and Chicks fleshy leaves make them less attractive to many garden pests and they are generally resistant to diseases. Tough plants for sure, and worthy of a spot in the garden. The next time you’re in Eising Garden Centre, we recommend that you peruse the Sempervivum section here in Simcoe and give these outstanding succulents a try!

March is the month that many of us have waited for all winter. It’s seed-starting time for lots of heat loving vegetables, herbs and flowers that will be transplanted outside in May or June. 

It’s also time to plan for cool weather crops. Cool weather crops?! This can be a revelation to many of us who are new to growing vegetables. There are two kinds of vegetable plants; heat loving and cold hardy. On average, most cold hardy veggies can withstand temperatures of -4 celsius and can be planted out weeks before the last frost date, especially if they are covered. We’ve listed some covering ideas at the end of this article.

So where do you begin? If it’s your first time starting heat loving vegetable seeds indoors, try beginning with one or two vegetable varieties that you love. How about an heirloom tomato that you just can’t find grown anywhere else, or some super hot peppers to spice things up? The seed carousels at Eising Garden Centre are fully stocked with vegetables and flowers right now so it’s the best time to come in and find something exciting to grow! Check the back of each seed packet, it will tell you how many weeks before the last frost date (around May 24th here in southern Ontario) to start your seeds indoors. There are also a few supplies you’ll need to get started - instructions and the essentials are listed in this blog post. It takes a little more work to start seeds indoors, but it can be very fulfilling and it does allow you to grow things that are unusual. 

If starting seeds indoors sounds like too much work, we’ve got you covered - visit Eising Garden Centre in May to shop our wide selection of vegetables, herbs and flowers that you can easily transplant and enjoy! 

If you’re eager to get gardening, why not try some cold hardy veggies? In Southern Ontario, cool weather vegetables can be planted early in Spring. This allows you to grow and harvest a whole crop before the heat loving veggies like tomatoes and peppers, and most annual flowers get transplanted around May 24th (hardiness zone 6b), or when overnight temperatures are regularly a minimum of 10 celsius. 

Here are some cool weather vegetables to consider planting as soon as the soil in your garden is workable (not frozen solid):

Lettuce is a crop that you can direct seed or transplant early, and it can be seeded every two weeks throughout the spring and fall for continuous crops. Lettuce seeds will germinate in about 7 days at a soil temperature of only 10º celsius but the optimal soil temperature is between 16-24 degrees. Do not worry about running out to buy a soil thermometer, or waiting until the soil temperatures are exact - all of the cool weather crops will germinate at slightly lower temperatures, they’ll just take a little longer. We also offer lettuce plants in the garden centre in early May if you would like to transplant established greens. Starting with a few plants, and some seeds will ensure a continuous crop of lettuces for several weeks. 
Lettuce can be grown in the shade in early summer. It will last longer in the shade as temperatures climb, and not bolt (plant begins growing seeds instead of leaves, making leaves on the plant bitter) as quickly.


Spinach and Arugula like lettuce, are very well suited to germinating early in spring or in the fall. The optimal soil temperature range for germination is 18º-24º C and will take about 12 days. 
Lettuce, Spinach and Arugula grow best in cool temperatures and tend to bolt as soon as temperatures warm up in late spring and early summer. Look for “bolt-resistant” varieties if you want to extend your late spring harvests.

Radishes can be planted throughout the early spring if you’d like a continual harvest of tender, young radishes. It takes about 30 days from germination to harvest, sometimes less for smaller varieties. Seeds will germinate at soil temperatures anywhere between 4º-35ºC which makes them easy to start!

Peas love early spring and cool fall temperatures! They will germinate quickly when the soil is between 18º- 24ºC and will be ready to harvest in late spring or early summer. This is another vegetable that you can start again as autumn sets in. 

Carrots grown in the spring can be harvested early in the summer making way for heat loving crops like peppers and tomatoes. Carrots will germinate in a wide range of soil temperatures, and can be planted outdoors about 4 weeks before the last frost date. Late in summer, as you remove the heat loving crops, you can seed more carrots for harvest in late fall or early winter.

Beets are another vegetable that can be sown in a wide range of soil temperatures. Because of this, you can start planting beet seeds as soon as the soil can be worked in the spring, and you can continue seeding beets every 2-3 weeks for a continuous harvest.
Green Onions (aka Scallions or Spring Onions), Kale, Chard, Collard Greens, Mustard Greens, Swiss Chard, Brussel Sprouts, Cabbage, Radicchio, Fennel and Cilantro are also seeds that can be planted in hardiness zone 6b in early spring when the soil can be worked.

Keep in mind that while these vegetables grow in cool weather, they may still be slow to grow or even damaged if the temperatures dip too low. If this happens, you may want to provide some protection like row cover cloth, a blanket, plastic, a cold frame, or a cloche (this can simply be a large plastic jug or containers).

If this article has piqued your interest, here are some great resources to help with seed starting and transplanting timing:

West Coast Seeds Vegetable Planting Guide

Heeman Ontario Seed Starting Guide

 

Reference for soil temperatures:

https://sacmg.ucanr.edu/files/164220.pdf 

We tend to get a lot of questions about rose care, and while roses do require more maintenance than other common shrubs, they’re by no means difficult to look after. A little bit of regular upkeep leads to some pretty impressive results, so if you’re a gardening novice, it’s definitely a worthwhile project. Here’s how you can grow and care for roses in Simcoe, Ontario. 

Planting Roses In Southern Ontario

Depending on the variety you choose, you can use roses for border plants, garden bed accents, climbing plants to train over arbours and patio lattice, or as container plants. Whatever location or growing medium you select, just ensure it’s suited to the size and growth habit of your chosen rose variety, since there are so many different kinds to choose from. That being said, almost all roses will need at least 6 hours of direct sun every day, so make sure your chosen location has plenty of light. 

The best soil for roses has excellent drainage and high nutrients, to set your rose bushes off to a good start, you’ll want to loosen up the soil thoroughly. Ideally, you’ll want sandier, loamy soil with a lot of compost mixed in.

If you’ve purchased a rose bush with bare roots, you’ll want to soak the root ball in water for up to 24 hours before planting. If it’s a potted rose, you won’t have to worry about that step. Plant your roses about 1.5–2 feet deep to fit their large root system, then fill the hole back up with the soil, compost and bone meal mix. Mound it up slightly around the base of the plant. 

How Often Should I Water Roses?

Generally, roses need about 1-3 inches of water per week. The thing is, roses are pretty susceptible to mildew and other fungal diseases if they get soggy and don’t receive much air circulation. That means you’ll want to avoid getting the leaves wet whenever possible and stick to watering the soil directly. The easiest way to do this is with a trickle hose set up near the base of the plant. Just turn it on and leave it for a while, so it thoroughly saturates the ground. 

If we experience a lot of rain in a short period, you can skip on watering, and should check your roses regularly for any signs of bacteria or fungal growth. Remove any damaged pieces with sanitized shears, wiping the blades clean between every cut, and disposing of the damaged parts safely in the garbage, not the compost bin.

Rose Care: Mulch, Fertilizer, And More

Applying a layer of mulch on top of the soil around your roses will help to retain moisture and control weeds. Some gardeners insist that cocoa bean shells are the best mulch for roses, but we’ve found that classic bark mulch still works perfectly fine.

 

In spring, feed your roses with a fertilizer formulated specifically for roses. For best performance and blooms, apply the fertilizer every 2-3 weeks during the growing season. There are also special fertilizers made for transplanting, easing the transition when planting your rose. Be sure to water your rose before and after applying fertilizer as their roots are susceptible to being burnt.

Since there are so many types of roses, this means there are different times of the seasons and different styles of pruning. Use a pruning saw or hand pruners to remove any damaged branches or awkward pieces that jut out too far. If there are some densely packed areas with branches, it may help to thin them out a bit to help prevent fungal growth. 

We have so many spectacular colours and varieties of roses to grow in Southern Ontario. Visit Eising to see our full collection, or check out our online store! We have citywide delivery and curbside pickup available all summer long.