One of the biggest problems of landscape artists and homeowners is how to distribute consistently bright colors across a particular space. Backyards for example, are often long, barren strips of land that need color badly. Lawns and patios are not exempt from this barrenness- which is why we need plants that are economic and are lively bloomers whole year round.

Shrub roses are one of these lively, whole-year bloomers. If you want something to provide a bright stream of colors everyday, but doesn’t need intensive cultivation or care on a daily basis, then planting shrub roses is the best choice for you.

Advantages of using shrub roses

1. Shrub roses grow easily in any type of environment. Nearly all plants thrive with just a bit of sunshine and water. Shrub roses are no exception; you simply have to find a nice, sunny spot in the garden, fill a deep hole with rich soil and plant the shrub rose.
2. Shrub roses thrive just as well when you plant other flowers besides them; this is good news for those who would like to balance colors by planting other perennials.

Some things to remember

Shrub roses aren’t picky plants, but the following should be observed for best results in your landscaping experiments.

1. You don’t have to apply fertilizer regularly either; time-released fertilizers are adequate to sustain the needs of your shrub roses. Place adequate fertilizer in the beginning of the season and you wouldn’t have to worry about anything anymore. You can then devote your time to more important things.

2. Unlike other flowers, shrub roses simply love the hot sun. More sun means healthier, livelier roses blooming all year round.

3.Mulching is especially important for the long term maintenance of shrub roses. For those who don’t know yet, mulching retains the moisture in the soil and allows a plant’s feeder roots to flourish.

What to look for

For busy homeowners, finding the right kind of shrub roses is vital- because you want a shrub rose that is truly a low-lying dwarf whose branches spread amply across. Shrub roses provided what landscaper artists call a “groundcover effect”, where the ground is completely hidden from view by the right kind of plants.

To experiment with the “groundcover effect”, you can plant other shrubs alongside your rose shrub; just make sure that the other shrubs will not be hostile to the rose shrubs. There should be a kind of symbiotic relationship between different shrub types planted in the same strip of land.

Characteristics

The roses that bloom in rose shrubs come in a variety of colors, from salmon to peach to dark blue ones. But aside from the flowers, you would want shrubs that have shiny, “moist” leaves that would glitter beautifully in the midday sun.

How big is a rose shrub, anyway? The usual dimensions are as follows: vertically, rose shrubs grown only up to 1 ½ feet. Upon maturation, it then spreads its low-lying branches across 3 feet of space. This is how low these dwarf shrubs are; imagine having five or ten of them in a row. With ten, you already have 30 feet of barren land covered!

Read more about Rose Gardneing …