How To Keep Roses Fresh and Beautiful

Show me a garden in England (and quite a few gardens in other countries, too) and I’ll show you a rose.

Roses have long worn the crown as the nation’s favourite flower: most of us grow them, even me, gnarly old veg gardener that I am.

Recommended course

From $75Up to $200

Roses

Michael Marriott

Roses taught by Michael Marriott

Michael Marriott teaches you how to plan and maintain a rose garden. Learn how to choose roses for your location, combine colours and pruning techniques.

View courseAll Gardening courses

I justify my addiction to roses by pointing to the fact that the petals are edible, and useful (fresh rose petals can be dried and made into a stress-busting tea, or combined with other scented flowers and foliage to make a wonderfully scented pot pourri). And if you choose one of the varieties with good hips, like Rosa rugosa, you can make rosehip syrup, packed with vitamin C so perfect for fending off winter colds, and the most delicious medicine you’ll ever take.

I also love growing them for cut flowers. Self-sufficiency, for me, includes providing your own floral bouquets. Buying flowers from your local supermarket or garage forecourt is one of the more unfriendly things you can do to the climate: commercially grown roses are often raised in places like Kenya, then air freighted over, giving them a carbon footprint of around 2.4kg a stem. Buying local is far better, so look out for ‘British grown’ on the label; even better, pick yourself a bunch from the garden, roses included.

Among the very best varieties for picking are those with long, clear, sturdy stems: scent is important, too, as a rose will fill your house with perfume sweeter than any amount of air freshener. Choose ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ for a lovely clear pink and long-lasting flowers; ‘Duchess of Cornwall’, another pink, also lasts well in the vase. ‘Irish Hope’ and the lovely ‘Graham Thomas’ have luminous yellow flowers; and luscious ‘Charles de Mills’ is a gorgeous, romantic red.

If you have space for just one or two roses, go for a dual-purpose species (wild) rose which can give you flowers for cutting, plus perfumed petals and hips for eating: the Apothecary’s rose (Rosa gallica var. officinalis) has the sweetest scent of any rose I know, while R. glauca has handsome, silvery foliage, and R. moyesii ‘Geranium’ boasts lovely single deep pink flowers and elegantly waisted hips like scarlet goblets.

When you’re picking roses for a vase, you’ll want to keep your roses as fresh as possible, for as long as possible. So here are my top tips for how to keep cut roses fresh:

1) Always harvest early in the morning

This is when your roses are at their plumpest, full of moisture from the cool of the night, and before the sun has evaporated off all those essential oils which carry the perfume

2) Use sharp tools

If you cut a stem with a blunt blade, you’ll crush it – and that prevents your rose from taking up water. So always cut with your sharpest secateurs, as cleanly as you can.

3) Cut flowers before they’ve fully opened

As soon as a flower opens, the clock starts ticking to petal drop – so aim to cut flowers while they’re still in bud and just about to open, so you can watch them unfurl before your eyes.

4) Re-cut your flowers before they go in the vase

Dunk your roses in a bucket of water, then re-cut the stems while still under water; this eliminates air bubbles from the stem. Keep them in water till you can arrange them.

5) Feed and water cut roses, too

Add flower food to the water to help flowers last longer, and every few days change the water with fresh. It also helps to re-cut those stems a couple of times a week, too.

Why not join me on my Self-Sufficient Veg Gardening course? I'll set you inspirational assignments to carry out so you can practise what you learn, and I'll help you on your journey to becoming fully self-sufficient.

Recommended course

From $75Up to $200

Self-Sufficient Veg Gardening

Sally Nex

Self-Sufficient Veg Gardening taught by Sally Nex

Learn self-sufficient veg gardening and plant planning with horticulturalist Sally Nex.

View courseAll Gardening courses

This course takes you right through the growing year, and explores the best ways to make the most of your garden so you can enjoy the superb flavours and freshness of home grown fruit and vegetables, no matter what the season.