Return to the Roses Forum
| Post a Follow-Up
Help!!
| | |
Posted by
evelynn none (
My Page) on
Fri, Jun 22, 12 at 15:39
| I recently moved to a new house and inherited some rose bushes. This one is by far the largest, at least 6', and the ugliest. It's a pretty much a single cane for almost 4' before it starts to branch out. How can I encourage it to bush out more? I've never had roses before so I have no idea where to even start. Also if anyone has any idea what type of rose it is I would love to have a name for it. I can only figure out how to post 1 picture at a time so I'll add a few replies to this with more pictures |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Help!!
| | |
RE: Help!!
| | |
RE: Help!!
| | |
RE: Help!!
| | |
RE: Help!!
| | |
I'm just guessing -- we don't know where you are located, or what climate zone -- but the bloom looks a bit like Betty Prior.
How old is the house? Where are you located? Jeri in Southern California |
RE: Help!!
| | |
| house was built in 1944 and it's in Connecticut |
RE: Help!!
| | |
| house was built in 1944 and it's in Connecticut |
RE: Help!!
| | |
| what can i do to fill it out some? |
RE: Help!!
| | |
| It does look like a quite old Betty Prior. Unfortunately, to encourage it to be fuller and bushier, you have to cut it down. I am not sure something that old, in your climate, will respond well to that kind of treatment. Perhaps you might plant another similar or contrasting rose close to it to provide the bushier, lower growth you desire. If you cut it down into too thick, old wood, it MAY not push new growth from that cane. Cut too far down and you might lose it. I don't know if you need to do any "snow pruning" where you shorten and thin the plant to prevent snow from breaking it, but personally, I wouldn't cut it any shorter than the top of your stone foundation. At least it will still have more juvenile growth that can send out new growth at that level. If you're lucky, it may stimulate it to send out new growth further down...or not. Kim |
RE: Help!!
| | |
| IF it's Betty Prior, I guess it could be an old climber. But it's hard to guess, not knowing where it is, how old it might be, and what the environmental conditions are. When I've seen an old Betty Prior in a Northern CA cemetery, it was, oh, maybe 4 ft. tall. Jeri |
RE: Help!!
| | |
| One way to approach the problem, if this plant fails, is just to plant a new Betty Prior. Jeri |
RE: Help!!
| | |
| If this were my rose I would cut out all parts of it that are dead and leave it at that for at least till next year. Since you just moved to this house, it may be a good idea to watch and wait to see what this is and what it can do. Remove the weeds from the bed, give it a good layer of mulch (though don't mulch up the rose's canes like those horrible mulch mountains in commercial settings.) Keep it watered and deadheaded, and you may be surprised at what you have next year. |
RE: Help!!
| | |
| jeri-- I've seen Bettys here reach 8 feet tall. Since it's kind of ugly and I'm an impatient gardener, I would cut it back to about 6" above the fork right now, and if it is unable to make new growth from that very old wood or from the base, I'd plant another rose. However, hartwood's advice is sensible. If I took that route, I would cut it back next year in late winter or early spring. |
RE: Help!!
| | |
| which fork? The lowest one or the one above it? I also really liked roseseek's idea. If i plant another bush with it how close to the original should i place it?. I think I'm going to listen to all 3 of u but delay really chopping it down until late winter. |
RE: Help!!
| | |
| which fork? The lowest one or the one above it? I also really liked roseseek's idea. If i plant another bush with it how close to the original should i place it?. I think I'm going to listen to all 3 of u but delay really chopping it down until late winter. |
RE: Help!!
| | |
| I meant the large, lower fork. |
RE: Help!!
| | |
| I would prune it next spring, in early spring. Depending on how much dieback it has, one might give it only a light pruning. I would be reluctant to prune off too much. I would remove weeds from the area, and rake in organic fertilizers and topdressings such as compost or manure. |
RE: Help!!
| | |
| One other thing you can add to the excellent advice you've already gotten is to include some form of alfalfa in the organic fertilizers Krista mentioned. The simpler the form of the alfalfa, the better, without a lot of extra salts. Most of buy ours in feed stores (I buy bales of alfalfa hay meant for horses) but you can find small bags of alfalfa hay in pet stores in the small animal section. You can also use rabbit pellets, if they don't have too much salt in them. Some commercial fertilizers like RoseTone have alfalfa too, but I prefer the cheap route. Just scratch it in lightly around the bottom soil of the plant as you're adding your compost and mulch. Alfalfa has made a "one cane wonder" that I inherited with my house branch out nicely, but it's less likely to be as effective at prompting new branches from the base (called basal breaks) in a climber like this. Still, roses love alfalfa and it can't hurt. Cynthia |
RE: Help!!
| | |
| Evelynn, you could try a little trick which sometimes works to encourage a new strong shoot from low down on the main stem. About 6 inches from the base, make a shallow cut with a sharp knife which goes at least a third of the way round the cane. You are just cutting into the very outer layer of the woody stem, about 1mm deep to partially girdle the cane. You are effectively interrupting the sap flow which, for some planty reason not fully understood by me, seems to kickstart new growth from a dormant bud lower than the cut. Ideally, this sort of thing should be done as the weather warms up in spring but it will do no harm to the rose to have a go this late in the season. At the worst, the cut will simply callous over and at best, a brand new basal will appear. A good watering and spot of tucker won't go astray either. |
RE: Help!!
| | |
- Posted by hoovb z9 Southern CA (My Page) on
Mon, Jun 25, 12 at 18:13
| Another thing you could try is to root a bunch of cuttings before you do anything drastic. Then you would have new, fresh copies of the plant to replace the old one. The foliage looks healthy, so it may be a very good rose for your area--just needs a reboot, so to speak. |
Post a Follow-Up
Please Note: Only registered members are able to post messages to this forum. If you are a member, please log in.
If you aren't yet a member, join now!
Return to the Roses Forum
Instructions
- You must be a registered member and logged in to post messages on our forums.
- Posting is a two-step process. Once you have composed your message, you will be taken to the preview page. You will then have a chance to review the contents and make changes.
- After posting your message, you may need to refresh the forum page in order to see it.
- It is illegal to post copyrighted material without the owner's consent.
- HTML codes are allowed in the message field only.
- No advertising is allowed in any of the forums.
- If you would like to practice posting or uploading photos, please visit our Test forum.
- If you need assistance, please Contact Us and we will be happy to help.
