Growing roses: varieties, seedlings, care and pest control from a Harinakunda officer

In a report Jagonews24 published on 1 June 2025, Shafiq Biplob, sub-assistant agriculture officer of Harinakunda upazila in Jhenaidah, gave advice on rose varieties, seedlings, care and the control of diseases and pests; the piece was written by Muhammad Shafiqur Rahman. His advice is set out below with background from Banglapedia, Wikipedia and the University of California (UC IPM).

Roses are prickly shrubs of the genus Rosa, family Rosaceae. Banglapedia puts the number of species at more than 150, while Wikipedia gives over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. Most species are native to Asia; Bangladesh has one, Rosa involucrata, in the marshland of Mymensingh, Sylhet and Chittagong.

Banglapedia notes there is no exact information on where roses were first cultivated; Wikipedia dates the earliest known cultivation of ornamental roses to at least 500 BC in Mediterranean countries, Persia and China. The China rose, Rosa chinensis, has contributed most to today's garden roses and is prized for flowering repeatedly. In the subcontinent, the Mughal emperor Babur introduced a highly scented light pink rose named Bashra.

Shafiq Biplob said China and Indian roses are the most common in Bangladesh, along with English, American and Dutch roses, and he named Taj Mahal among the large hybrid cut-flower varieties. Banglapedia records that world-renowned roses such as Papa Meilland, Double Delight, Dutch Gold, Queen Elizabeth and Montezuma are raised in Bangladesh by budding, and that local varieties such as Fatema Sattar and Jayanti have been bred in the country.

Seedlings, the officer said, are usually budded plants, though air-layered and cutting-grown plants are easy to find too. In his figures, seedlings of local varieties start at Tk 20 and good-quality plants cost up to Tk 500. Banglapedia explains that roses can be propagated by seed, cuttings, layering and grafting, and that budding, in which a bud of the wanted variety is set into the stem of a rootstock that supplies the roots, is the most suitable method for commercial production.

Roses like sun, the officer advised, but not harsh sun, and rooftop pots should stand slightly raised. Plants need regular, measured watering and, once a month, rotted oilcake water as a liquid fertiliser. Pinching and pruning are essential. His other routine tasks were:

• cutting off faded flowers together with their stalks
• removing dead leaves
• weeding regularly
• replacing 25 per cent of the potting soil twice a year
• turning the pots of older plants from time to time

UC IPM's 2020 guidance on rose diseases likewise advises sunny, airy, well-spaced planting, watering at soil level rather than over the leaves, and clearing fallen leaves.

The officer named dieback, in which shoots die back from the tip, as a serious rose disease. Leaf-eating caterpillars, hairy caterpillars and aphids attack roses, and mealybugs can appear. Every hot season, he said, growers lose many plants to mites and insects. He advised biological and chemical control, with pesticides only at approved doses.

UC IPM's 2019 pest guide calls aphids the most common insect pests on roses. An early-morning jet of water is often enough, and insecticidal soaps or horticultural oils, including neem oil, suppress them with only moderate harm to natural enemies. Spider mites thrive in dry, dusty conditions and can multiply after broad-spectrum insecticides kill lady beetles and lacewings. For diseases the guide stresses pruning out infected canes and sanitation, with preventive fungicides only if these fail.

Shafiq Biplob said domestic demand for roses lasts all year and is growing, and roses are grown commercially in Bangladesh as a cut flower. Cut-flower varieties on a rooftop can earn extra income from flowers and seedlings.

Rose water, which Banglapedia says is valued in Islamic culture and used at milad mahfils as a symbol of purity, is made from the flowers, and the petals go into some sweets, including jellies. The vitamin C is concentrated in the fruit, the rose hip: Wikipedia notes that dog rose (Rosa canina) and rugosa rose hips are among the richest plant sources of vitamin C, and are made into jam, jelly and tea.

Photo: SAIDUL HASAN / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Sources: Jagonews24, Banglapedia, Wikipedia, University of California (UC IPM)