We have roses planted in our yard along the fence, and the side of our house. We never did much with the ones on the side of the house. I don't really know much about roses, but decided it was time to start figuring out how to take care of them.

First, some of the roses on the side of the house are small pink and yellow roses with many small petals. Most of the bushes in the back and front yard have a deep maroon color roses growing with petals that feel like velvet you would find in a jewelery box. There are a couple of bushes with really pale pink roses, pink on the ends and white going into the center of the roses. Then the roses that are most fragrant and large, as big as both fists put together are a bright pink. We also have some that are a bright orange and another bush that has two different color roses that grow on it (I'm not too terribly sure about that either). If you know by any chance by my extremely vague description of the roses, what kind they are, I would appreciate it.

Second, the care of roses. We have a rose bush in our front yard that gets maybe one or two blooms at a time, is that normal, and can we some how get more blooms than one or two at a time? And when do I trim the bushes and how tall? I noticed at the high school here, when the bushes are trimmed they are really really short. And is there a certain way I cut them?

Thank you so much, your help would be greatly appreciated. I am just now taking an interest in gardening and herbalism and know very very little, so please excuse my ignorance.

sounds like the pink and yellow are english roses,as far as pruning early spring,how you prune depends on what kind ie;climbing prune out only dead canes,tea roses there are a couple ways first hard pruning will cut short like the school,second medium pruning is basicly cutting all canes even about half way up,this is probably what youll need to do since your roses are over a couple years old as for bloomimg differant roses have differant amounts they will bloom,also the more sun they get the more blooms.best advise is water well at least 3 times a week.i love my roses and i hope yours do well. good luck

What zone are you in?

I hard prune my roses around President's Day (short canes pruned to an outward facing bud).
Also deadheading roses encourages more blooming because the plants energy isn't directed toward forming rosehips. When I deadhead, I cut the branch down to the first set of 5 leaves. I don't know if that's an old way to do it, but it works for me.
I mulch my roses with manure every spring and water them deeply and infrequently, making sure to keep the hose off of the leaves and stems.
Roses are remarkably resilient, if I have trouble with a variety, I generally cull it out and find another kind that's easier to work with.

It sounds like your roses are very happy so you are off to a good start!!

If you want to identify your roses you can either get in contact with your local rose society (ARS but remember they will probably not have an organic outlook on life) and ask someone to come out and help you identify your roses or you can buy or rent books to help you do so. "Roses" by Roger Phillips & Martyn Rix is one of the best.
When you prune and how hard you prune will depend on your location and intention. The people who prune really heavily tend to be the rosarians who intentionally stress the plants in order to stimulate heavy blooming. They want to enter the rose shows and need to have the most potential choices for display or just bragging rights. These people tend to spray heavily and fertilize heavily as well. As I said, not organic. Later pruning can reduce damage from a late frost. Again, your location is important. Where I live the roses don't always go dormant because of mild winters.
You DO want to clean up any rose debris from under the bushes as they will spread any old rose disease and it is also highly recomended to remove old leaves from the bushes during winter for the same reason. If you want lots of blooms remember that roses are heavy feeders. They like lots of compost, manure, calcium, alfalfa pellets, fish fertilizer,(not all of the above necessarily, I'm just throwing out ideas). Water deeply a couple of times a week, but keep the leaves dry.
Truthfully though, roses are tough and survived without us for millenium. Unless your conditions are extreme once established they'll probably survive just fine.

Another site that I have found very helpful:
www.gardenweb.com - they have a forum dedicated to growing roses organically, and they folks in the roses forum can probably help identify your mystery roses.

Best,
Deb

Hi, I love roses too and am interested to learn more about them as you do. Our two rose bushes have produced such beautiful flowers this year. One bright red and the other a sort of pinkish/yellow...magnificent :-) roses !!!

They are very hardy because they suvived right through the Canadian Winter of temperatures below 15 celcius & that's COLD. I will follow your posting and see if I can learn more by checking that website. Have a good day, KJ.

You can't identify roses without seeing them. There are too many variables and too many varieties. You can however get a pretty good idea of what you have by comparing what you see with the photos in a book. However there are other variables to keep in mind. If you think the rose resembles something that wasn't available until 1990 and the base of the plant is the size of your wrist it is not likely to be that rose.

It's not that the roses aren't surviving, in fact they are doing excellent, they'r actually crazy and every where. Ones on side of house are getting so tall that that I can't reach some of the roses that bloom. I just was looking for how to take care of them so that they don't get crazy every year. They grow in every other which direction and a new bush popped up like three or four years ago from a pile of cut offs we had. Now we don't pile it up, we burn it... don't want many more bushes. We have so many as it is. As far as zones go, I think I'm in zone 8? I live in Oregon.

I also just bought my first rose a couple of weeks ago. I was quite intimidated by all the care that I had always thought roses required.I got very good information at the following web site from "Lynette (The Oldrosarian)". www.allexperts.com Then go to Garden-Roses-Roses. It is free and she gave me such interesting facts about my rose [called Carpet Rose], eg that in Europe it is used to line highways, so I needn't be too worried about upkeep!