Christmas Roses Care: Everything From Watering & Fertilizing

Proper care is required to ensure that your Christmas roses bloom safely in winter. Here you can find out everything about the correct watering, fertilizing.

If the site conditions are right, Christmas roses ( Helleborus niger ) are quite undemanding in terms of care. The robust, evergreen plant can even cope with severe frosts (down to -10 ° C) and prolonged periods of drought. Nevertheless, you should take good care of your Christmas rose. Like all plants, Christmas roses need sufficient amounts of water, nutrients, and light to develop optimally. The effort is guaranteed to be worth it for you. Because when a Christmas rose feels good all around, the clumps become larger and more willing to bloom from year to year.

In the following, we will explain to you how you can best proceed when watering, fertilizing, and cutting Christmas roses. We have also summarized the most important points for caring for Christmas roses in pots.

Water the Christmas roses properly

Christmas roses prefer fresh, moist soil. Sufficient watering is particularly important during the flowering period from November to February. If it is dry, you should water Christmas roses with normal tap water on frost-free days. But even outside of the flowering period, the root ball should not dry out completely. Therefore, keep an eye on the ornamental shrub during the summer months to water if necessary. Avoid waterlogging, however, because an environment that is too wet can, for example, encourage fungal infestation.

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Fertilize Christmas roses properly

Christmas roses do not have particularly high nutritional requirements. In the open air, a year-round layer of mulch made from fresh compost, leaves, or grass clippings is usually sufficient as fertilizer. It decomposes over time and is transformed into valuable humus by soil organisms, which is why it should be renewed regularly.

Earthworms that are attracted to organic matter also help aerate the soil. In addition, the mulch layer protects the perennial buds on the earth’s surface over the winter.

In pot culture, you should use a fertilizer with organic long-term effects. This is particularly environmentally friendly and can be easily incorporated into the topsoil layers. When the soil is poured on, the decomposition process begins and the nutrients it contains are gradually made available to the plant. If there is not enough compost or leaves in your garden, you can of course also use our Plantura organic flower fertilizer to supply your Christmas roses in the bed.

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Cut Christmas roses

Regular pruning is not necessary for Christmas roses. In early summer (May) simply cut off the withered flower stalks so that the Christmas rose does not invest its energy in the formation of seed heads. The old leaves are only removed when they have been completely pulled in. In this way, the plant can assimilate all remaining nutrients to feed on them in the next flowering period. Removing the old leaves also helps prevent fungal diseases from multiplying and pests not being able to hide.

Care for Christmas roses in the pot

Christmas roses in pots have special demands on their care due to the limited amount of substrate. Regular watering is necessary so that the root ball of the Christmas rose does not dry out completely. To ensure that your Christmas rose produces many flowers, you can also work some fertilizer into the substrate when you plant it. In addition, you can use liquid fertilizer regularly (every 14 days) during the flowering period.

So that the root ball of the Christmas rose does not freeze through in the cold winter months, it is best to wrap the pot with bubble wrap or a jute sack during this time. If you place the planter on a wooden or styrofoam plate, the Christmas rose is also protected from the cold from below. In spring, if you don’t want to harvest any seeds, you can gradually cut off the withered flowers. You can leave the leaves on until they are completely withered.

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