You did nothing wrong and the roses will be fine. That first 5 leaf set thing is old and out of date and never meant for climbers anyway. Now days there are several ways to dead head and you can use what ever one works best for your situation. With climbers you want to cut those laterals back. That's how you keep it in shape and stimulate new growth and rebloom. Otherwise the next set of blooms will be out even further on long laterals off of the first set of laterals. Unless you want to have an octopus rose you need to cut those laterals back to keep the roses shaped. On other roses you can dead head as deep as you need to for shaping or just snap off the spent bloom just below the hip. Either way you won't hurt your roses.

As seil said basically. These old pruning techniques are a pain now. I cut them to however they look good and in fairness almost like a spring prune. This years flowering shoots will be pruned on their thickness and their length from the main stem, not their length from the top. Laterals on a climber down to a couple of nodes else you end up with a wild heap at the top and it looks a mess.

Oh good, I'm am so happy to hear this. Thanks for helping me with this. Now, just to wait to see if I get more blooms. I feel so much better now.

As seil said, you can deadhead using any approach you want as long as it works - you won't damage the bush. With the modern climbers, try to concentrate taking out or cutting back laterals, and try to leave the foundation canes alone as much as possible. Cutting back a foundation cane won't harm the bush in any way in the long run, but in the short run the bush may be set back a bit in terms of blooms until you can retrain another cane.

Much more important than the approach you use, is when you do it. Stop deadheading at the proper time. If you deadhead/prune too late into the season, that CAN result in damage to the bush.

Hi Nicki, Thank you for your suggestions. I just don't know what a 'modern' climber is? Is Polka a modern climber? Okay, I won't cut the foundation canes. How many canes should you have on a climber? I have at least 7 or 8. I have one long cane with only leaves near the tip and was wondering if I should just leave it alone? When is the best time to stop deadheading? Thanks again.

Yes, Polka is a modern climber. 7 or 8 canes is a healthy number. As it ages you can cut out at the base one or two of the oldest canes each year to encourage it to give you new growth from the bottom. On some roses as the canes age they will give a little less bloom. So you want to encourage younger canes to come along now and then.

It you have a cane that only has a leaf growth at the tip that never produces a bloom that is called a blind cane. I usually snip off a couple of inches and hope that stirs it to bloom. Sometimes it works and sometimes I have to do it again before it decides to bloom.

Stopping dead heading is up to you and when you get your first freeze. The usually rule is about 6 weeks before first freeze. I keep dead heading mine right up to frost. I haven't seen that it makes any difference in my roses. The idea is that you stop dead heading so the roses won't produce new growth late in the season that will die off over winter. I found it didn't matter. Even when I stopped dead heading in September the roses kept right on growing right up to frost anyway. So the next year I dead headed the whole season and there wasn't any more or less new growth. If the weather is good they want to grow and will do so regardless of what we do to try and encourage them to go dormant. They decide when that time is.

I have learned that whatever I do, at this time of year, they have time to recover. As long as I don't hard prune.

Hi Seil,
Thank you so much for taking the time to explain so much to me. Okay, I think I'll experiment and just cut a little off the end of that blind cane. I also have a brand new cane this year and it is really thick. It has lots of lateral canes with rose buds right at the top. When those roses are finished blooming, I'll cut the laterals back. How close to the cane would you recommend? It's just so wonderful to learn from gardeners who are really experienced. Thanks so much to you and everyone else for all your help.

susan: Thanks for the ecouragement. I see lots of new shoots growing from where I cut those laterals back. I'm waiting with such anticipation to see if I get new buds on those new shoots. Fingers crossed!

One thing I have to disagree with.

Roses - the repeating kind - don't go dormant. So basically they will continue to grow so long as external conditions are encouraging new growth. That is not necessarily a good thing during the cold seasons when external conditions have spurred new growth, and then temperatures plunge to well below freezing. Everyone who's grown roses has seen "winterkill" under those circumstances. "Winterkill" is just another term for cold damage

Basically, roses enter a state called "quiescence". It isn't actual dormancy - it is just a sort of slowing down. There are almost none of the protective features of dormancy. So in roses, new growth - and even in some circumstances old growth - are subject to cold damage when in truly dormant plants there is little or no damage

We used to talk about "hardening off" our roses. That's not quite correct. Roses don't actually "harden off". Or to be more accurate, they don't go through all the protective changes as do plants that enter true dormancy.

It's up to us to prevent as much as possible any new growth on our roses as the weather starts to turn cold. We can't do much about the natural variations in outside temperature, but we can stop cutting.

I Was always under the impression that pruning encouraged new growth and if that was killed by frost , the energy store would be depleted. Plant would be less likely to survive winter.

Around here in our town a lot of people hard prune
there roses in October/November and they come back year after year in the Spring...
(Some rose bushes cut to near ground level)

Different strokes for different folks....lol

Susan,

The energy store is created by leaves in sunlight, so the extra foliage created by the rose growing strongly through the fall should add to the energy store--unless the leaves are killed shortly after they expand. In that case the latest growth in fall would be a waste. Generally, new growth is productive of energy rather than parasitic. However, developing hips suck up a lot of energy (sugars and starches) that might go into new growth if there were no hips. A third place that plant energy can go in the fall is being stored in the canes and stems for antifreeze. Roses increase the sugar content of stems in response to temperatures in the 40s and 30s F over a few weeks' time.

New growth in fall will be killed in winter, but Seil's thought is, "So what? I will have to prune off the top growth in spring anyway."

The energy store is reduced whenever stem tissue is removed, whether by freezing or pruning. That's why fall pruning of roses is not a good idea in colder areas. Although I practice deep deadheading on tall, happy roses in summer, in the fall I just remove the flowers.

Frankly, we don't know whether any cultural practice such as deadheading or fertilizing affects the winter hardiness of roses, because there hasn't been any controlled research. Meanwhile I will continue to deadhead and fertilize in fall so the garden stays neater and more floriferous. Doing so hasn't caused any problems for me. But if someone is more comfortable following the traditional advice, that will work too.

Jim,

A lot of people (who aren't rose people) hack their roses down in fall and often get away with it. That doesn't mean it is a good idea. It weakens the plant and encourages canker. I guess the idea is not having to look at bare canes all winter.

This post was edited by michaelg on Thu, Jul 25, 13 at 14:43

Cadence, that brand new basal cane is a good sign that that rose is healthy and happy. After the laterals bloom you want to cut them back to just a couple of leaf nodes from the main cane. And don't be surprised when they regrow and give you another bloom in the fall.

The best way to learn about your roses is to observe them. I walk my roses every single day, even in the winter, and look at how and where they are growing from. At first I used a notebook to jot down notes about different roses but over time I stopped needing that. You'll note after a while how every variety is different and which ones respond to which treatments in what manner. And when you prune or dead head a rose watch where the new growth starts from. It's not always where you pruned it at. Sometimes the rose makes it's own decision where it wants to grow from. In time you'll see that they all have their own personalities!

Nick, I read your answer three times over and I can't see that we disagree at all. I'm saying basically that from what I've observed whether you dead head or stop the roses DO continue to grow until weather conditions stop them. Whether that's dormancy or quiesence they do at some point slow their growth down to a point where it's unobservable at freezing temperatures. If temperatures are such that they will damage rose tissue, whether or not it's new or old growth, it WILL be damaged. That normally starts from the top down so taller canes will die from the tips and still leave longer lengths of viable cane.

Jim, I've been telling every and any one who will listen to stop hacking their roses off in the fall for years now. A lot of them use those dreaded rose cones (You don't even want to get me started about those!) and have to butcher their roses to get them inside those horrible things. They may be getting away with it but they're not doing their roses any favors. They start out each season with half the plant they would have and they still have to cut more off because invariably there is still some more winter kill (or damage, like rot, from the cone). I've found that if I leave them as tall as possible with as much cane and leaf for as long as possible they start out the next spring after pruning much larger and healthier. And I get first bloom sooner because the plant does not have to grow back all of it's size before it sets buds. Even in colder zones than I'm in you'd be surprised how much cane does survive winter without damage and is viable if you don't hack it off in the fall assuming it's going to die. Some years, of course, are better than others but that's to be expected. The winter before last was particularly warm and my roses bloomed nearly to Christmas and never truly stopped growing, albeit slowly, all winter. Last winter was a cold one and I did have to prune a little harder this spring but because my roses were larger to start with they still weren't stubs when I got done. And for grafted roses in particular I think the more cane you can leave the better so you don't have to prune down to that graft, chancing killing it, anyway. If you are worried about wind damage or "rock" over the winter securely stake and tie up any long canes so they won't flop around and damage themselves that way. You'll have much larger, healthier and happier roses in the spring.

Michael, egads yes! I never even thought about the energy spent on hip growth. So stopping dead heading early could actually be very counter productive in preparing a rose for winter. Much more so than putting out a little new growth because that at least may help with producing some energy before winter as a counter balance.

I won't even try to get into much of this conversation because it's way beyond my understanding. Maybe in a couple of years I'll be arguing with all of you about whose right or wrong. hahaha

Seil - thanks again for all your wonderful help. I've been doing exactly that, watching my roses every single day and sometimes more than that. I think my neighbors think I'm obsessed with all the plants in my garden. I never thought about taking notes. What a great idea! I'm going to do that. Mark down even when I fertilize etc. Okay I will follow your instructions about cutting back the laterals after the flowers fade. Thanks so very much again Seil and to everyone.

I learned what I know from this forum. It is awesome. And as a result, my roses are awesome.

See? Lolol

Yes I know hacking roses in the fall or early winter is not correct... I personally do mine in the Spring which I think is best...

But I will not fault someone else for doing things differently when they are still getting good results whether right or wrong...
Try telling someone that's getting good results there way is wrong...lol... Not me...lol

This post was edited by jim1961 on Thu, Jul 25, 13 at 23:23

Let me explain exactly why we get better results by not pruning in the fall (referring to heavy pruning of canes as opposed to just removing spent flowers).

1. All stem tissue contains stored nutrients.

2. When new growth comes, it will come at the highest point of the still-living part of stems.

3. Repeat-blooming roses such as hybrid teas, being naturally evergreen, can make premature new growth when warm spells occur in winter and early spring. This growth will freeze, wasting the stored energy spent on growing out and providing opportunity for canker fungus to attack the underlying cane.

4. If the rose has not been pruned, this wasted new growth will have been partly "funded" by nutrients stored in the upper part of the canes, nutrients that would have been thrown away if the rose had been pruned in fall.

5. If the rose was pruned severely in fall, premature growth will have to develop at the base of the plant, drawing on the core energy store in the crown, roots, and fat lower canes. Cankers that might develop at the base of the plant would be more damaging than those developing higher up.

6. In some circumstances, pruning cuts made in late fall can be directly invaded by canker fungi. One year I experimented with topping the plants in late November, and almost every cane was infected by botrytis canker. I think this happens because the plant's immune system is less active during dormancy.