If your roses won't bloom or fail to bloom as you expect them to, it's usually pretty easy to determine the common causes for their not
blooming and correct it within one growing season. Some of the newer roses don't require much care at all, but some of the older
varieties tend to be stuck in their old ways. It may seem like you have to cater to their every need just to persuade them to bloom at
least once or twice every year. Let's just get right down to the root causes of your non-blooming roses.
Rose Planting Location
If you've planted your rose in a shady location, or even what seems like to you is only a semi-shady location, your rose bush may not
be getting enough sun every day. The only way you'll be able to determine this is if you observe exactly how much time your rose is in
direct sunlight. If your rose is getting more than 6 hours of sun per day and it's still not blooming, you'll need to keep reading for
another cause. If your rose is not getting enough sunlight and your home or your 50 year old maple tree is shading your rose bush, you're
only left with a few choices. Either tear down your home or cut down the maple tree. Or...you could just relocate your rose bush to a spot
in your yard or landscape that receives more sun. If you're not really sure that your rose is getting enough sunlight, you can try
some of the other solutions below before transplanting your rose bush to another location with more sunlight exposure.
Overfeeding Roses
Sometimes we may get a little overzealous when it comes to caring for our roses. At first thought it may make sense to feed your roses
more than usual when you notice that they aren't blooming like they did before. But overfeeding roses may actually be compounding the
problem. Just like most other flowering plants, when you feed roses too much nitrogen fertilizer it starts using that extra nitrogen to
make leaves. When your rose bush expends all its energy in making leaves, blooming is put on the back burner. If you believe you may be
overfeeding your rose bush or climber, just go back to the recommended feeding schedule for your particular plant and see if that gets
your roses blooming again. If that doesn't fix the problem, there may be other issues at play.
Too Much or Too Little Water
Roses love water! But just like our bodies, they don't like too much water or too little water. If you have your roses on drip-irrigation
or even if you water them by hand with a garden hose, they may simply be getting too much water. If you haven't been keeping track of
the soil moisture around your roses and they've stopped blooming, this could be a problem. Make sure the soil around your rose bush
doesn't feel wet. If the soil feels more than moist to your touch, cut back on your watering efforts and this will likely result in
your roses blooming again.
If your the soil around your roses feels dry, they may not be getting enough water. If your roses don't get the water they need, they
will basically shut down and go into conservation mode. They can't help it. That's just their genes working as they should. If the soil
is drier than it should be you might want to apply mulch around your roses. Mulching roses
helps to conserve soil moisture and keeps the soil around your plants from baking in the sun. A good thick mulch around your roses will
keep the soil from drying out as quickly, which means less watering for you. Just make sure to keep the mulch a few inches away from the
trunk of the rose bush.
Soil pH Test for Roses
If all else fails, and you have no idea what the soil pH level is around your roses, you may want to consider having a
soil pH test ran so that you can be sure that your soil is able
to release the nutrients that your roses need. Soil pH that is high or low can lock up soil nutrients making them unavailable for the needs
of a particular plant. An ideal soil pH for growing roses is around 6.5. If you find that the pH level of the soil around your roses is
too high or too low you'll need to correct it before you can expect to find out why your roses won't bloom.
