How to Grow Mini Roses With Lamps

Growing mini roses under lights allows you to force early blooming and allows you to grow roses indoors. Roses need light, moisture, warm temperatures and nutrients to grow and bloom. You can provide all of these necessities more successfully in an indoor, controlled environment. Because of this controlled environment, roses grown under lights are often larger and have more blooms than roses grown outdoors. Any healthy, perennial miniature rose varieties that grow well outside will grow well inside, but shrub varieties are often easier to control and house indoors than climbing and tree varieties because of the limited space.

Things You'll Need

Pot
Potting soil
Water
Insecticide
Fungicide
Pebbles or gravel

Shallow tray
Fluorescent lamp
Cool-light fluorescent bulb
Warm-light fluorescent bulb
Fertilizer
Fine-mist spray bottle

Instructions

- 1
  Fill a plastic or clay container with sterile potting soil formulated for roses. To make your own potting soil, mix 50 percent sterilized soil with 50 percent peat moss and add a cup of sand, 1 tsp. of dolomitic lime, 1 tbsp. of bone meal and 1 tbsp. of superphosphate.
- 2
  Transfer the outdoor or newly purchased miniature roses to the container, burying just deeply enough to cover the existing root ball.
- 3
  Water the container with running water from the sink until water pours from the drainage holes in the bottom of the container.
- 4
  Spray the plant thoroughly with an insecticide and fungicide.
- 5
  Place pebbles or gravel into a shallow tray and fill the tray with water. This tray provides the humidity the roses need that is often absent in indoor environments.
- 6
  Set the potted roses on the pebbles in the tray. The bottom of the container should not touch the water in the humidity tray.
- 7
  Place the tray and container roses directly beneath the lamp. Use a fluorescent lamp with at least one warm light bulb and one cool light bulb to achieve the proper balance of blue and red in the light spectrum for the best results. Keep the lights turned on for 14 to 16 hours during the day. Then turn them off for eight to 10 hours to give the roses a period of darkness at night.
- 8
  Rotate the roses often on a regular schedule, daily or weekly, to expose each side of the plant equally to the light.
- 9
  Add water to the container as often as is necessary to keep the mix moist.
- 10
  Fertilize only during the growth cycle and blooming period of the plant with a fertilizer specifically labeled for roses.
- 11
  Mist the plant daily to remove dust, mites and aphids from the leaves and stems.
- 12
  Treat any insect infestations or fungal infections immediately with an appropriate indoor product.

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