The Impossible Rose: A New Way to Garden That Is Easy to Care For

You’re not the only one who loves the idea of roses but hates the reality. For a long time, the word “rose” has meant high-maintenance gardening, which is only for people who are really dedicated. It makes me think of a strict schedule for spraying to get rid of black spot, fighting Japanese beetles every day, and figuring out pruning guidelines that are so hard they seem like they need a special degree. Many gardeners have just given up because they think that the classic beauty of a rose is a reward that takes more time, effort, and chemicals than they are prepared to provide.

We need to change that way of thinking at its core. In the past, the only option was demanding divas, like the picky hybrid tea roses that need the right conditions to bloom. In the world of horticulture, there has been a subtle but strong revolution that has given us a new type of rose that is as beautiful as it is hardy, tenacious, and self-sufficient.

Say hello to the groundcover rose. This is the rose you thought you couldn’t get: a low-growing, spreading workhorse that covers up weeds with its thick leaves, does well with little care, and blooms in a beautiful carpet of color from late spring until the first harsh frost. These roses aren’t like the ones your grandma had. They were bred over decades with a specific purpose in mind: to thrive in modern, low-maintenance gardens. These are the main benefits that will change the game for any gardener:

• Lots of flowers all the time: These roses are bred to bloom all the time, unlike older roses that only bloom once or twice and then stop. They keep putting out new buds all season long, so your garden will always have a burst of color.
• Forget about spraying every week. This plant is very resistant to disease. These roses were carefully chosen since they are naturally resistant to common fungal diseases including black spot and powdery mildew. Their leaves are generally shiny, which keeps them clean and healthy without the need for chemicals.
• A Growth Habit That Works for Many Different Problems: Their low, spreading shape is not only pretty, but also useful. They are great for covering bare ground in landscape beds, keeping soil stable on steep slopes where mowing is hard or dangerous, and making a living, flowering mulch that makes garden work easier.

The Science of Modern Breeding: Not Your Grandmother’s Roses

So, what makes these roses so strong? It’s not a mistake; it’s science that is meant to happen. For the past 30 years, the best rose breeders in the world have stopped trying to make the perfect flower form and started trying to make the perfect garden plant. They carefully cross-bred durable, disease-resistant species roses with gorgeous modern hybrids to get a group of features that are very desirable: flowers that grow quickly, clean themselves, and drop their petals cleanly, and most significantly, glossy, healthy leaves. The thick cuticle on this shiny leaf surface makes it considerably tougher for fungal spores to get in and grow.

The German ADR (Allgemeine Deutsche Rosenneuheitenprüfung) trials are the most important part of this effort. This is probably the most strict and well-respected plant trial in the world. For a rose to get an ADR certification, it has to not only live, but also do well, for three years in a row in 11 separate trial gardens in Germany. What is the most important part? It has to do this without using any chemical sprays for pests or diseases and without any protection from the cold. It is graded very harshly on how well it resists disease, how well it survives the winter, how it grows, and how many and how good its flowers are. If you see a rose with an ADR seal of approval, you can be sure that it is one of the strongest and most trustworthy roses you can buy.

Tip from an expert: I’ve changed out whole beds of picky, disease-prone roses in clients’ gardens with newer groundcover types. There is a big difference. The maintenance routine extends from weekly check-ins and spraying to a simple spring cleaning. From spring to frost, you worry less and enjoy a colorful carpet.

Choosing the Right Rose: The Best Varieties to Grow

There are so many great groundcover roses to choose from that it all comes down to the color, temperature, and precise garden environment you want. Dedicated series frequently have the most popular and proven solutions, and each one has its own benefits. Knowing their usual routines can help you make the right option.

Flower Carpet® Amber Rose is my go-to for tough spots since it really is bulletproof. Its leaves are shiny and don’t get sick, and its peachy-apricot flowers appear amazing from far away. It does a lot of labor and doesn’t expect for much in return.

The Best Planting Guide: From Flat Beds to Slopes That Are Hard to Climb

The most important thing you can do to make sure your rose garden grows well and doesn’t need much care is to plant them correctly. Putting in a little additional work up now will pay you for years to come. Spring and fall are the greatest times to plant since the roots have time to settle in before the stress of summer heat or winter cold.

For a normal flat garden bed, the steps are easy and work well:

• Make a hole that is twice as wide as the pot and just as deep. This allows the roots a lot of loose dirt to grow in.
• To make the soil you took out better, mix it with compost. This adds important nutrients and organic materials.
• Put the rose in the hole gently, making sure the top of the root ball is level with the soil around it. You might plant too deeply, which can kill the roots.
• Fill in the hole with the amended soil and water it well to settle the plant and get rid of air pockets. A thorough soaking is very important.

How to Plant on a Hillside: Mastering the Slope

When planting on a slope, you need to think ahead a little more to fight gravity and make sure your roses get the water they need to grow.

• First, make a small, flat terrace for each rose. As you dig the hole, use the dirt you take out to make a small, crescent-shaped berm on the side of the hole that is going downhill. This makes a small terrace that will capture rain and irrigation water and let it soak down to the roots instead of rushing off down the hill. This one easy step can make all the difference between success and failure on a slope.
• Second, mulch right after planting and do a good job of it. A thick layer of shredded bark mulch that is 3 inches deep will act like a blanket, keeping the soil from washing away in a strong shower as the rose roots grow. It also helps keep moisture in.
• Lastly, think about how many plants you want to put in. To keep weeds and erosion at bay for a long time, the roses need to grow together forming a thick mat of roots and leaves that fit together. This means that you should plant them closer together than you would a normal shrub. Two to three feet apart is the best distance. In the first year, it can look a little bare, but by the third year, you’ll have a thick carpet of color that naturally kills almost all weeds, making your yard very easy to care for. The thick web of fibrous roots will also act as a net, keeping the soil in place and stopping erosion.

Gardeners sometimes space groundcover roses too widely apart, like regular shrubs, because they are used to thinking about how big a single plant will get as it grows. This makes spaces where weeds can grow for years, which defeats the point of a low-maintenance planting. Don’t spread them out if you want a carpet of color that doesn’t need much care. For keeping weeds down, planting more closely is your best friend.

The “Care Plan That Needs Almost No Work”

Groundcover roses are beautiful, and once they are fully grown, they need very little care. Your role is to help them get through the first year. After that, you can basically sit back and watch.

• Watering: For the first season, water newly planted roses deeply once or twice a week to help them grow a deep and wide root system. Once they have established, their roots are so good at finding moisture that they will only need extra water during very hot weather or lengthy periods of drought. You may easily check by putting your finger two inches into the ground. If it’s dry at that depth, it’s time to water.
• Fertilizing: These roses don’t need a lot of food. You only need to use a balanced, slow-release rose fertilizer once in the spring when new growth starts to show. A balanced fertilizer will contain N-P-K numbers that are near to each other (say 10-10-10). This will provide your plants all the nutrients they need without making them grow too many leaves and not enough blossoms.
• Mulching: This is the real key to success and the secret to a life that doesn’t need much work. Every spring, put down a thick layer of mulch. It will keep the soil moist, keep the roots cool in the summer, and stop sunlight from reaching weed seeds, which will kill them naturally.

The 5-Minute Pruning Plan for Getting the Most Out of Your Plants

The notion that “no pruning is needed” is mainly correct, but a simple, optional pruning plan will keep your roses looking their best for a long time. Don’t worry about complicated criteria for counting buds or detecting leaf axils; this is easy.

• Cleanup Pruning (Anytime): If you see a branch that is dead, broken, or damaged, just cut it off using a pair of pruners. You can do this at any time of year, and it’s just good garden hygiene.
• Rejuvenation Pruning (Once every three to four years, optional): Before new growth starts in late winter or early spring, you can give your hair a “rejuvenation prune.” This is just a fancy way of saying a fast haircut. Cut the whole plant back by half to two-thirds with a pair of hedge clippers. This makes the plant sprout new, healthy shoots from the base, which keeps it small and increases the number of flowers it produces.

This optional rejuvenation prune is not a delicate task that takes a lot of time. You only have to spend 5 minutes every few years to make sure your car runs at its best for a decade or more. Don’t be afraid; these roses are strong and will respond well to this therapy.

Don’t be afraid to be harsh with that optional rejuvenation prune, though. These roses are strong! I use electric hedge cutters on my big plantings, and they come back stronger and fuller than ever. This is the quickest five minutes of gardening you’ll do all year.

Designing with Groundcover Roses: Beyond the Rose

A large group of groundcover roses is beautiful on its own, but when you mix them with other plants, you get a garden that looks great all year long and has a lot of depth. You could say they are the gorgeous, hard-working base of a bigger design.

For Color in Early Spring

Roses have one “down time” in early spring before they start to leaf out. This is a great time for bulbs that bloom early. Plant grape hyacinth (Muscari), crocuses, or species tulips under your roses. These little bulbs will bloom and add a nice touch of color. Then, as the roses start to grow, their leaves will fade away, completely hidden by the new canopy.

To make things look different

Put the roses next to plants with a different texture to make them stand out even more. The delicate, airy leaves of perennials like Catmint (Nepeta) and Lady’s Mantle (Alchemilla mollis) make the roses look like they’re floating on a cloud. The upright shape of ornamental grasses, such the thin blades of ‘Karl Foerster’ Feather Reed Grass, also makes a nice vertical contrast to the flat, spreading shape of the roses.

For the Edge

A formal edging can help your rose planter look neat and polished. A clear line of low-growing plants, like dwarf mondo grass or the fuzzy, silver leaves of lamb’s ear (Stachys byzantina), can make the planting area seem nice and make the transition to a lawn or walkway look neat.

Troubleshooting Guide: What to Do When Easy Roses Are Not Working

These plants are resilient, although they can still have some small problems. Here is how to confidently figure out what’s wrong and fix it.

Problem: There are fewer flowers than I thought.

• Causes: The main reason is because there isn’t enough sun. Roses need at least six hours of direct sunlight every day to bloom a lot. Other reasons include be not enough water during the hot summer months when buds are growing, an older plant that needs a rejuvenation pruning, or adjacent trees that are competing for roots.
• Solution: If your roses are in a shady position, the only real answer is to move them. Make sure established plants get a deep watering when it doesn’t rain. Next spring, if the plant is older than four years and looks woody, do a rejuvenation prune.

Problem: Chlorosis is the problem with yellow leaves.

• Causes: Yellow leaves with green veins are a classic indicator of chlorosis, which means that the plant doesn’t have enough iron. This happens a lot in alkaline soils (soils with a high pH), when the iron in the soil is chemically “locked up” and can’t be used by the plant. It can also happen when the roots are too wet and the drainage is bad. If your plants are turning yellow all over, it could mean they don’t have enough nitrogen.
• Solution: First, inspect your drainage for possible problems. You need to add organic matter to the region if it is always wet. If the drainage is good, the problem is probably the pH. You can use a fertilizer that has chelated iron in it, which is a type of iron that plants can take in more easily. A balanced, slow-release fertilizer applied in the spring will usually keep nitrogen levels from being too low.

Problem: Weeds in the first two years are a problem.

• Causes: This is a short-term problem because the baby roses haven’t grown big enough yet to make a strong canopy that keeps weeds from growing.
• Solution: The answer is patience and mulch. For the first two seasons, make sure to have a thick, 3-inch layer of mulch on the ground and take away any weeds that try to get through. Don’t worry, this problem will fix itself. In the third year, a bed of groundcover roses that is very densely planted will be so thick that very few weed seeds will be able to get the light they need to grow.

Your garden that doesn’t take much work but gives you a lot of rewards is waiting for you.

Now you may have a garden full of gorgeous roses without all the hard work. Modern groundcover roses have fixed the problems of their picky predecessors. They are strong, reliable, and incredibly gorgeous, making them the perfect choice for any sunny place in your yard.

You may make a landscape feature that gets better every year while needing less and less from you by following this easy formula for success: A thick layer of mulch, good drainage, and full sun

That’s all. That’s the trick. You can finally get the rose garden you’ve always desired.

Questions that people ask a lot (FAQ)

How long does it take for groundcover roses to cover an area?

If you space your groundcover roses correctly (2–3 feet apart), they should develop a thick, robust mat in three growing seasons. In year two, they will look nice, and in year three, they will look great.

Do I need to cut off their heads?

No. Most modern groundcover roses are “self-cleaning,” which means that the old petals fall off cleanly and the plant keeps making new flowers without you having to cut off the old ones.

Do groundcover roses attract bees?

Yes, they are a great food source for pollinators. Bees really like the kinds that have solitary or semi-double flowers (where the center is open and visible) because they make it easy for them to get to the pollen.

Is it possible to grow them in a hanging basket or container?

Of course! The Drift® line has the smallest variations, which are great for containers, window boxes, and even big hanging baskets, where they will spill over the sides in a charming way. Make sure you pick a big container and be ready to water it more often.

Do groundcover roses smell good?

Most current groundcover roses have been selected for disease resistance and extended bloom, not for a strong scent. Some do have a mild aroma, though. You might need to look at different types of roses if smell is very important to you.

How do they deal with snow?

They do a great job at it. Their canes are low, sturdy, and flexible, so they won’t break when it snows. A good snow cover is actually a great way to protect the plant in the winter.