There are few flowers that are quite so beautiful as roses, and growing your own specimens is one of the most rewarding areas of gardening that you can imagine. From choosing the right plant through to caring for it, and finally selecting the best flowers for your display, rose growing is a discipline that can take up as much time as you have to spend, and is a fascinating and enjoyable area of gardening.

There are literally hundreds of different species of rose to choose from, from almost white through to deep reds and yellows, as well as the classic red roses. Most people buy an established rose bush that will flower every year rather than growing from seeds, although you can do this if you prefer.

The key to a healthy rose bush is to regularly water the plant, and feed it with good quality soil, fertiliser, and manure. You should perform regular maintenance on your bushes, cutting back shoots that are not healthy and regularly use insecticides to keep your bush pest free.

Most people prefer to have their roses on a long stem, and this can be achieved through training the bush to grow in a particular way. However, you will generally get fewer blooms on a long stem bush than you would otherwise.

One of the most important parts of rose growing is ensuring that you choose the right flowers to display. As with any flowering plant, a rosebush will inevitably produce some blooms that look better than others, and it is important to concentrate on these. For competitive growers, cutting off substandard blooms to concentrate the resources of the plant on the best flowers is normal practice.

Top growers will get maybe one flower from their garden that they are truly satisfied with, and all they will have at the end of the season is a photograph and a memory, but the next year, they will return to the garden again in order to enjoy the whole process once again.