Step-by-Step: How to Make a Bridal Bouquet
Beloved for timeless form and classic fragrance, roses are a fashionable choice for summer brides. Centuries of hybridizing allow a wide range of colors and looks.
What to Look For
Shapely blooms that hold petals well, such as many hybrid tea roses. David Austin English Roses—developed from crosses of old roses with modern ones—have plump, many-petaled blooms, often fragrant, capturing old rose romance. Roses that flower in clusters, like floribundas, are also good choices; a single cluster is practically a bouquet itself.
Our Favorite Bouquet Roses
- 'Bride's Dream' – soft pink hybrid tea with large, very long buds
- 'French Lace' – creamy white blossoms with soft apricot centers
- 'Graham Thomas' – David Austin English Rose with cupped, butter yellow blooms
- 'Honor' – pure white hybrid tea with large, perfect blooms; 'Sheer Bliss' – hybrid tea with long, fragrant white blooms lightly blushed pink
- For color: 'Gold Medal' – dark gold blooms with red-orange tips; 'Intrigue' – floribunda with globular purple buds opening to ruffled plum-colored blossoms
Getting Started
- Planting time: January in mild climates; March or April in colder climates.
- Bloom time: May–June (peak).
- Start from: Bare-roots (four to six plants per bouquet).
- Where to buy: Garden centers, nurseries, or Heirloom Roses (503/538-1576).
What Roses Need
- Soil: Well-draining; dig in organic amendments like compost before planting.
- Exposure: Full sun all day.
- Preparation: Soak bare-root rose roots ~4 hours in water. Dig hole ~2 ft wide, 1 ft deep, sides tapering outward at bottom. Make firm soil cone in hole.
- Planting: Spread roots over cone, position at same depth as (or slightly higher than) surrounding soil. If grafted, keep graft ~2 inches above soil. Use shovel handle to check depth. Add backfill, holding plant upright. When nearly done, add water to settle roots. Finish filling, water again. Add mulch (ground bark) around plant.
- Water: Irrigate regularly during growing season.
- Fertilizer: In mildest climates, feed established plants with complete fertilizer in February. Elsewhere, first feeding when new growth appears. Thereafter, feed after each bloom cycle.
- Harvesting blooms: Pick when just beginning to open from tight bud (they'll open more fully later). Cut just above third five-part leaf, counting down from flower. Encourages longer stems and stronger growth.
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