Martha Stewart’s Tips for Growing Roses Will Give Your Garden a Quiet Luxury Vibe

published Jun 7, 2024
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Martha Stewart headshot on colored background
Credit: Gabe Ginsberg/Getty Images

Martha Stewart knows her stuff about a lot of things. But one thing she’s a total pro at is growing beautiful gardens. She and her team at Bedford Farm in upstate New York have cultivated an impressive spread of flowers, shrubs, vegetables, and trees, and one of the collections Stewart is most proud of is her roses — and if you follow a few of her simple rules, you can grow roses like Stewart’s, too.

“Beautiful, Fragrant Roses … one thing I love is the intoxicating scent of a garden rose,” Stewart captioned a recent Instagram post on her Martha Stewart Blog account. “I have many, many roses — in my perennial flower garden, in my allée of lilacs, and in a more formal space behind my main greenhouse.”

She wrote that she redesigned the 68×30-foot rose garden last summer to include three rose varieties — floribunda, hybrid tea, and shrub roses. “All with gorgeous color, form, and fragrance,” she wrote, and her hard work is paying off in a big way this spring. 

“Right now there are gorgeous, fragrant blooms at every turn, some as big as one’s hand,” Stewart continued, and provided a few tips on how to grow roses as successfully as she does.

The first step, Stewart says, is choosing varieties that are disease-resistant. This will set you up for a successful growing period. Various hybrid tea roses are disease-resistant, but there are a bunch of other varieties you could try including old-fashioned heirloom roses, Flower Carpet, Knockout, and Carefree roses.

“When selecting a location, plant roses in a sunny spot where they can get at least six hours of sun and good drainage,” Stewart wrote over on her blog. “Rose roots grow deep, so be sure there is adequate room for the roots to spread.”

“When watering roses, give them the equivalent to 1-inch of rainfall per week during the growing season,” she continued. “And when pruning in early spring, prune with the goal of opening the center of the plant or shrub to let in better light and air circulation.”

She also recommends removing dead and diseased parts of the plant throughout the year to make sure the entire garden stays healthy, and to feed your plants with a slow-release formula made specifically for roses. Check out Stewart’s blog to find more tips and photos and get ready to grow your own Stewart-inspired rose garden.