Sunflowers are great for children to grow because of their fast growth and amazing flowers.

You can sow sunflower seeds directly into a sunny spot in the garden or into deep pots if you don’t have much garden space.  Water gently and wait a week or so for the shoots to appear.

Be prepared to stake the plants as they get taller, especially if you live in a windy area.  Or if you have them on a balcony you can tie the stems to the balustrade or a pole to help them stand up straight.

This means that a bush left unpruned becomes a tangled mass of dead and live wood bearing flowers of poor quality on spindly stems.

Pruning is the means of getting rid of the dead and diseased wood each year and encouraging the development of new strong and healthy stems. It will also give you a well shaped bush which will flower freely, giving you quality blooms on strong stems over many months each year for many years.,

Rose bushes are pruned in the winter when they are dormant. they will reward you with flowers from late Spring through to Autumn, even early winter depending on where you live.

When you start pruning,  you may have a lot of old leaves to cope with. Start at the top.  If you prune from the bottom of the bush you may remove stems you really should retain. You cannot put it back!

Remove some of the top growth then cut out dead and diseased wood, the weak and spindly wood that is cluttering the bush and stopping air circulation that will lead to disease. The best flowers are produced on new wood so if you have had sufficient new growth to maintain the shape of the bush, COMPLETELY cut out unwanted old stems.

You will now be able to “see” the bush properly and can make your final cuts. Medium pruning is a good general guide, i.e. prune to about half the original height of each stem. Some roses, such as FIRST LOVE, resent being pruned too hard and should be lightly pruned, i.e. to about two thirds of the original length.

The final cut should be to an outward facing bud to keep the centre of the bush clear and aid air circulation. You should now have 3 or 4 good strong stems ready for the coming season.

When you have finished pruning and have removed all the prunings carefully hoe the soil to loosen it up where you have been treading. Add a dressing of blood and bone.

SPRAY the bushes, paying particular attention to the bud union at the base of the bush.

A suitable spray is a mixture of a copper spray such as Copper oxychloride and All seasons oil. Mix separately as directed on the container and combine after mixing.

DO NOT prune during or just before rain. If the cut has not sealed there is a risk of infection by disease. The oil in the spray mixture will help seal the pruning cut.

Notes provided by Graham Williamson of the Kapiti Rose Society.

But roses will bloom in an ordinary garden for eight to ten months in the year with very little attention.

Yes – they do get bugs and they can appreciate a spray from time to time to keep them looking good and to stop bugs from eating the leaves.

Over the next while we are going to have more posts about growing roses – written by en expert who is passionate about them, has grown roses for more than 30 years and who wants to share his love of the rose.

If you buy flowers, re-cut the stem when you get home and stand the stems for several hours or overnight in a bucket of luke-warm water.

 If your cut flowers have come from a florist, you will find a small sachet of commercial flower food in wiht the flowers.  This contains “flower food” that  helps flowers to stay fresh longer.  Simply add the contents of the sachet to the water in the vase before you arrange the flowers.

To can make your own “flower food” add one teaspoon each of sugar, chlorine bleach and white vinegar to a 30 cm vase.   The sugar feeds the flowers, the chlorine slows down the bacterial growth, the acid improves the PH of the water.

Flower food and fresh water can increase the life of cut flowers by up to 25 percent.

Floppy flowers benefit from a hot water treatment. If you have bought some flowers and taken longer to get home than you expected, put about five centimetres of boiling water in a bowl or mug and hold stems in it for about 30 seconds (no longer or they will cook). Keep the flower heads out of the steam.  Then arrange them in a vase with flower food – see above.

Some flowers like special treatment to keep them fresh longer.

Dahlias  Plunge the lower 2 cm of stem in boiling water to seal the stem.   Pick flowers when sun is not on them.

Roses  Cut roses in the evening and put them into a bucket of warm water with flower food. You will need 1 tbsp each of sugar chlorine bleach and vinegar per bucket.  After treating the roses to a long soak, pour some of the water from the bucket into the vase, re-cut 1-2 cm of each stem as you arrange the flowers.  Get the stem into the vase as soon as you have re-cut the stem. If air gets into the stem it forms bubbles that block access to the water so the rose cannot drink.

Iceland poppies   Burn the ends of the stems with a match! – it works!

Daffodils, tulips etc  Change the water often because they exude slime which taints the water.

Woody stemmed plants such chrysanthemums, lilacs, viburnums and spring blossom such as prunus and wintersweet also benefit from a hot water treatment.  This gently softens the stems to open up the fibres, which improves their water uptake.

Autumn foliage  Cut and put it straight into a jar containing up to 100 cm glycerine.  Leave for 5-6 days to absorb as much as it can.  Will keep fresh for months.