Anything which generates longer canes, sort of like climbing canes, such as many Austin roses as well as many Bourbons and HPs are good candidates for pegging. Generally, you can "peg" using any method which permits you to bend the cane off the vertical so you more evenly distribute the sap flow ALONG the cane rather than only at the cane ends. It's very much how you train climbers and for exactly the same reason...to provide you an armload of flowers on shorter stems rather than a few blooms on many feet long stems.

You have to look at the growth habit of the particular variety rather than simply state "Bourbons". Mme Ernst Calvat is great for pegging while the bush form of Malmaison wouldn't be as it's more China to floribunda type, bushy growth. Kim

It took hours. Not a fun task.

After the first big flush, the canes all died back to the highest point, so the plants looked awful.

I am greatful for every learning experience, but this is not one I would repeat.

Jeri

Jackie

I learned from doing it -- and experience is valuable, but other than that, it was a waste of time and rose canes.

Jeri

After looking at those two odd canes for a couple of months I decided to tie they to the picket fence upper rail. Boy did they not like that! The canes looked "angry" about there new horizontal position, but it is a climber so I figured maybe it would be happy this season.

Flash forward to this spring, those angry fat canes are loaded with fresh growth and I am looking forward to seeing what the flowers look like this year. I think I lost a couple of flushes from tying them last year, but am hoping they make up for it this year. I have seen no evidence of the canes growing longer yet or adding on to the tip of last seasons cane. I bet this one would have died like Jeri's if I had pegged it and pulled the tip lower, but it sure is loving being level.

Rosefolly

Cut off the terminal end of the cane and you have new buds swelling to replace the "leader", like when you cut the top out of a tree and many new branches grow to replace it. There always has to be somewhere for the growth to "escape". Now, bending that growth off the vertical, even if it's only twisting it around a post, and you slow the sap flow, more evenly distributing it along the cane where it pushes many undeveloped buds into growth to replace that terminal leader.

It's also what permits you to grow espaliered apples and other fruits. The horizontal branches produce laterals which generate the fruiting spurs. Those laterals are replacing the leader, that horizontal branch, and have to be pruned back to push new laterals which then fruit when they mature. It's all the same no matter what kind of plant you're dealing with.

"Pegging" differs from training climbers only in that climbers are traditionally fixed to some sort of structure, a fence, trellis, wall, etc. Pegging originally meant to bend the canes over and attach them to the ground by being tied to a peg or stake driven into the ground. Victorian and Edwardian landed gentry had gardening staff who spent their time tying the canes in place, grooming them to produce almost crop circle patterns of flowering rose canes on the lawns, as well as continual weeding and clipping of the grass which continued growing up through the bound and bent canes.

Self pegging is accomplished by tying the canes to free standing stakes then bending them back to themselves and attaching them so they make loops or even hearts. It isn't for everyone as it IS rather labor intensive, but it can provide you the ability to grow larger plants with tremendously greater quantities of flowers in less space. I don't do it at home because it's more work than I wish in my space, but have done it for others for work. Kim

But it is happy and pushing new growth all over this year. For what ever reason, on others as well, seems Stormy Weather puts out a bunch of smooth almost thornless canes and then some DNA testers. I would think I was just my plant, but have seen it at a big nursery too.

I had sited it in a spot where a large fern blocked the light from reaching the rose. When I put a deer cage around the rose, the rose, 'Cardinal Hume', used the cage to help it climb to the light above the fern and then started putting on lots of foliage and bloom.

I decided to experiment with a modified pegging to see if I could get a more vigorous plant. I didn't peg the rose to the ground, but tied it to the deer cage so that the long canes were above the fern.

This year, I made the deer cage much larger and tying the long canes created by the rose while reaching for the light in a more horizontal fashion to the new deer cage and kind of created a shrub rose above the fern. It was like having a new rose. It put out a lot of new growth from those horizontal canes and lots of new foliage and blooms. It even started putting on new basal growth. I think that's because it was getting more natural feeding through photosynthesis.

I can't provide photos this year because a double-jointed starving deer managed to get under the stair rail and down into the deer cage and eat every bit of foliage on the rose.

What's interesting to me, is that as soon as the triple digit temps dropped, the rose put on new foliage and is looking pretty good.

What I learned from my experiment is that it is not necessary to peg a rose to the ground. It will respond well as long as those long canes can be tied into a horizontal fashion. It's going to be interesting to observe what the plant does next year.

Smiles,
Lyn