22,795 Garden Web Discussions | Roses
In total agreement. (but, believe me, Gulf Coastal summers are brutal and they last more than three months.)
What bugs me the most is that some powers in DC can decide to average different years, and all of a sudden, our hopes are up. Only to be dashed by reality.
I've been reading a lot of history, and some of it pertains to our problems with temperatures. You may remember reading about Alexis De Tocqueville... he visited North American in 1831. Part of his trip was a planned return up the Mississippi in December. BUT the Mississippi had ice flows on it so far south into southern Mississippi that he had to travel overland.
Late 1890's the north end of Mobile Bay froze solid. (That would be the fresh water wedge above the saltier waters, but, still, it froze solid.)
We don't see those temperatures now, even at the extreme end of the temperature bell curves.
This also leads to an admiration for the Noisettes which were new introductions in that winter of 1831, which a lot of them survived. IMO our wimpy roses came about because green houses in the late 1800s became common and roses and other flowers grown there were wanted outside of greenhouses.
thank you stillann for your information and advice, I pruned back the rose quite far being careful to disinfect the pruners between cuts. I checked some of the other roses and there were a couple of suspicious canes here and there and I've pruned them back to and put it all on the burn pile. Guess I'll be watching for it now and being a lot more careful when handling the bushes and pruning to not spread anything.
Sure is nice to have this resource with so many experienced rose people willing to help!
Just a quick update, I'm moving my little rose bush to my friend's house today to live outside. Thanks for all of your advice and hopefully it'll grow ok in it's new location. I've been misting it every day, so hopefully that will have helped it along. At least my other plants are growing well!
I see crocuses up and almost ready to bloom in many peoples' yards. I see various bulb shoots coming up as well, probably tulips and daffodils. No forsythia, which does not seem to be popular in my neighborhood. Tree crews just pruned all the city trees in the entire area. I am afraid it is still too early to prune my roses. And how far down should they be pruned?
Do you have pear trees or those pink weeping cherries? Those are blooming here now, too. And other orchard trees like peaches and apricots.
I usually just prune out the discolored canes from winter, back until the canes are nice and green. Then prune out any canes that will cross too closely to another one (unless it's a small plant that needs all the canes and leaves it can get). You can take some height off of most modern roses if you like (or leave them tall), but if the rose only blooms once a year wait until after it blooms to do that.
Some of the good canes may not actually be a great green. I have some that get kind of purple in the winter. That's fine. And some old canes can look kind of dead when they are just woody, so look for live buds pushing leaves if it's a particularly woody rose bush.
Then you do have to cut off canes that have bad, cankered spots in them. You have to cut those off below the cankered area. Those are usually pretty obvious, I think (or I don't worry about the small ones). I hate to have to cut off long canes for that, but if you have a big bad spot on any cane, the cane will have to come off sometime. The canker can spread/creep down and up the cane, so go on and take care of that before the rose wastes all kinds of energy on the cane. Sterilize your pruners between cuts when dealing with canker.
Thank you. I received the two Signature in Jan and Pure Posh in Feb. Their pictures on HMF and J&P look beautiful and I cannot wait to see their blooms.
Talking about rose vendors, I bought two roses from Heirloom (own root) and they look great too. I am sure will buy from them again if I need own root roses.
I have been ordering most of my roses from Regan and pick them up locally. Their bare roots roses are very healthy too.
Helen
Oh, Beth - I'm so glad you are almost done with this nightmare! You were already prime candidate for GardenWeb Rose Hero for having 2000+ roses and posting such exquisite pictures everywhere, not to mention all your helpful and supportive comments. But moving 60 well-established roses in one day by yourself - that's worthy of its own Special Hero Award all by itself.
I'm sorry to hear of the loss of specialty roses in that area too! You are the keeper of many hard to find and rare roses in the US, and it's sad to hear of them fading on you. If you feel like posting a list when the smoke clears we might be able to see if we have cuttings to share. I sincerely doubt anything would survive in my zone 5 yard that wouldn't survive in yours (in fact you are the cause of many dying attempts to grow roses like Butterscotch or Smoky), but I'd be happy to attempt cuttings of anything unusual I might have to replenish the collection.
Hang in there, and we send virtual hugs and red wine from the GW family.
Cynthia
Thanks guys! Thanks Cynthia! You're sweet. I just want the ones I had to dig out to make it at this point. They don't look so good, but I think they'll make it. I didn't get around to taking pics again. They left the big John Deere caterpillar thingie in the backyard til Monday and the dump truck outside. Didn't get paid yet either. I was kinda surprised.
Got the bird feeding pergola moved. The property is so sloped we had an awful time getting it level. It's a big 10'sq aluminum one with slats across the top. I got is free at work a few yrs ago cuz it was missing parts. Ok with me. Was only bolts missing, which we bought to replace them. I hang bird feeders all over it and have a new ceramic bird bath which I use for a feeder instead. Put the peanuts there for the jays. When they get the rest of the equipment out of here, we'll do the dog's pen. Then I can start planning beds. Yippee!!
My roses will look like that frequently in the spring when temperatures fluctuate like what you describe. They get frost nipped when the new growth isn't quite prepared for low dips in the temperature. You can pull off any foliage that annoys you, or the rose will drop it off on its own and grow lovely new foliage for you. Others may chime in if there looks to be anything else contributing to this, but it looks like normal spring variability to me.
Cynthia
It really depends on where you are. Anywhere around here, Iceberg is horrible for blackspot, and really needs to be sprayed. Sombreuil has had unimpressive blackspot resistance, but is better. White Dawn is a seedling of New Dawn, and supposedly not as good a rose. White New Dawn is a sport of New Dawn, so has all of its merits, but is a lot harder to find. White Cap is also a good white climber, though it isn't quite as hardy as New Dawn. I expect a lot of dieback on it this spring.
You're welcome dear! Wow, you're living in a land of squirrels. I hope you can find a way to control them, so you can have some beautiful blooms.
Back when I had the worst case of rose midge my foliage was gorgeous. Should this continue for you or if you see a very reduced bud count rose midge would likely be the reason. Some times you don't see the burn't tips. They can also so bite the tender foliage in the leaf axis where the buds would form. Instead of buds you'll see a black mark where the buds would have formed. Last year was my first sign of midge rearing its head again in a long time. I'm a little worried about what I'll see this year. Either way hope you see those roses soon.