Roses Set

Growing Miniature Roses Inside – How Is It Possible?

If for winter you are looking for indoor roses to grow, miniature roses might be your best bet. Some gardeners are irked by the idea of growing miniature roses inside because of the obvious lack of natural conditions required to grow this high-maintenance flower.  But with a bit more patience than usual, you will be rewarded with vibrantly-colored miniature roses to brighten up your house even during the coldest time of the year.  In this article, we teach you the basics of miniature rose gardening and how you can apply them to your own situation.

First of all, don’t go plucking out a miniature rose bush before you read the following.  Your roses first need time to be prepared.  Before your roses make the transition from outside to inside, allow a period of dormancy when the plants can take a rest.  Dormancy occurs naturally right after the roses are exposed to the first sweep of hard frost in late autumn.  But you can also induce dormancy by reducing the three most important elements needed by the roses to produce new growth: water, heat, and light.  This means you should reduce watering (taking care to provide only partial watering), shut the plants off from sunlight, stop fertilizing, and leave the foliage on until they voluntarily fall off.  This should take place about three to six weeks before you plan to transfer the roses. 

As a challenging variety of roses to grow, miniature roses will take a lot of trouble to take inside.  Give them a thorough watering before digging them up and place them in plastic or clay pots to grow.  Clay pots are preferred because they don’t allow the water to accumulate in the soil, but they don’t let it dry out too quickly either.  This keeps the soil in tiptop shape for the miniature roses—moist enough to keep the roots well-hydrated but not soggy.  Speaking of soil, always use a sterile potting mix that contains half peat moss and perlite and half garden soil.  Add one tablespoon of dolomitic lime and another tablespoon of bone meal to keep the soil below the acidic pH level. 

You can opt to place your roses beside the window that receives the most sunshine, but some days will be cloudy, others will be rainy.  If you are serious about allowing your indoor roses to live, you ought to use grow lights situated about two to four inches above your plants and kept on for 18 hours and off for the remaining six hours of the day.  Fluorescent lights or halogen bulbs are the best artificial lights for indoor roses.  You also have to mimic ideal humidity conditions outside, especially since an indoor furnace will keep the moisture content of the air inside the house lower than usual.  You can set a humidifier nearby, but a natural way of keeping their environment humid is by setting the pots in trays filled with stones and water.  That way, the pots are in no danger of getting wet all the time.  Put a bit of Chlorox into the water to avoid the production of molds. 

Spider mites are also a problem, but they aren’t impossible.  In fact, it is quite easy to get rid of them, provided you keep your miniature roses under a watchful eye.  At the first sign of yellowing leaves, douse the plant in water with a bit of detergent soap and rinse it off by spraying with water.  Watering should be done once a week for six weeks, taking care that the roses receive the most amount of light possible and the surrounding air is at the right humidity level.  By the sixth week, a number of buds should be flowering and you can take the miniature roses to a more prominent place in your house. 

There you have it.  It isn’t so easy and so you might feel some frustration at the beginning.  But it only takes a whole lot of effort before your home livens up with a pot of miniature roses.  So, are you ready to take on the challenge?  Happy mini-gardening!

About the Author

Catherine Martin comes from a long line of passionate rose lovers, growers and enthusiasts. As an author, she is committed to demystifying the common rose, so that all who wish to can grow them easily. For more great information on growing miniature roses, visit http://www.rosegardeningexpert.com

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