Growing Miniature Roses

Miniature roses may be small but they are bursting with character and strength. They are bred to stay small in size and have much smaller flowers than the regular rose bushes; however they come in a variety of wonderful types and colours.

Types of Miniature Roses

Climbers

Climbers are miniature roses that can be trained to grow against supports. The award winning ‘Jeanne Lajoie’ is a miniature rose that grew to a massive 7 feet as well as the ‘Snowfall’ miniature rose that has canes that stretch out 7-12 inches.

Micro-Mini

These are some of the smallest roses you can get. They have tiny blossoms of ¼ to 1 inch in size. The ‘Bambino’ has ¾ inch orange blossoms on an 8-12 inch plant. The ‘Chasing Rainbows’ variety are a beautiful yellow contrasting with scarlet edging on a 10-15 inch bush.

Miniflora

The American Rose Society classed this variety as having a slightly larger plant and bloom size than the typical miniature roses. The Miniflora average plant size is 2 ½ – 4 ½ feet. The ‘Moonlight Sensation offers fragrant flowers in pale lavender on a 3 inch plant. The Miniflora ‘Harm Saville’ has rich red blossoms on velvety petals that grow on an 18-20 inch plant.

Trailers

Trailers are miniature roses that have a cascading growth habit which makes them lovely in hanging baskets and flowing down walls. The ‘Sequoia Gold’ has beautiful yellow fragrant blossoms that keep on blooming all through the season. Another miniature trailer rose is ‘Green Ice’ a tough rose that has buds which start out apricot and then change to double white flowers and then change again to a fresh light green.

How to Plant Miniature Roses

Miniature roses are simply just smaller than usual, so they don’t need to be treated any different to normal size roses.

All you need to do is dig the hole the same depth as the size of the pot the rose came in but approximately a foot wider. Once you have done that, you will need to very carefully remove the rose from its pot and very gently loosen the roots. If the roots are tightly bound in the soil you can use a sharp knife to score the sides of the root ball.

If you want you can add organic matter to the hole for the roots to feed from. Once you have the hole prepared, you can then place the rose in the hole making sure to carefully spread the roots. Once you have done this you can then fill the hole in with soil and gently firm it down.

Water is essential to the growth of your rose and once you have planted it carefully, you should thoroughly water it making sure to add a layer of mulch which will protect it.

Feeding

Roses love their food, especially roses that bloom all season like the mini roses and so fertilising is vital.

There are lots of different fertilisers to choose from and if you follow the instructions you can’t go wrong.

  • Add fertiliser when the rose first produces leaves
  • Feed with fertiliser after each heavy flush of blooming.
  • It is important to stop feeding 6-8 weeks before the first frost.

Pruning

It is best to prune miniature roses, like other roses before new growth starts in late winter and early spring. You do not need to go overboard with pruning, it is not necessary and it will only damage a rose trying to g row. It is important however to get rid of the dead or broken wood first. You only need to trim back a third of the plant to maintain its shape and encourage new growth.

Watering

You will need to keep alert to your rose’s watering needs. The amount of water depends entirely on the climate and the soil your rose is rooted in. If you provide an inch of water each week, that should act as the minimum. However on hot days you will need to water your miniature roses much more frequently. We need more water in sunny weather and so do our roses. A rule of watering is to make sure you water your roses deeply so the water travels at least 12-18 inches below the surface. This means your rose is more likely to survive longer without being watered as it can find water below the surface.

One key piece of advice is to avoid getting rose leaves wet during humid weather, wet leaves encourage fungal diseases.

Diseases and Pests

Those annoying pests and diseases can be eradicated with a new product called ‘Messenger.’

As with every flower and all roses you will need to inspect your miniature roses for signs of insect damage from Japanese beetles, trips and chafers etc and treat accordingly.

Miniature Roses as House Plants

Miniature roses do not do well as house plants and are often relocated outdoors. They need a lot of sun and humidity which they receive in summer however when the heat from indoors gets to them they don’t survive very long. If you are given a mini rose as a gift, it will live a lot longer if you transplant it outside where it can really thrive.