Your roses are, no doubt, blooming away and looking beautiful. Don’t forget to dead head them so they continue to bloom. If you leave the spent blossoms on the plant takes that as “reproduction finished” and doesn’t bloom as much. The purpose of the flower, to the plant, is solely reproduction. If you have hybrid teas, which are supposed to have one blossom per stem, and they are forming several buds per stem just remove the side ones. You will get bigger blooms that way. It is said that knock out roses do not require deadheading but if you do leave on the spent blossoms they will form hips, which is where the seeds are, and where the energy goes. Don’t just remove the flower but go down the stem 3 or 4 leaf sets to make your cut 1/4″ above the lower leaf set. Use this as a shaping opportunity, too.
Your fertilizing and spraying program should be well under way. If you started to fertilize middle of March and are using Rose Tone every other month is sufficient but with all the rain I wouldn’t hesitate to give them an extra feeding. If using Plant Trust, 4 times from mid-March to mid-August is fine.
