22,153 Garden Web Discussions | Roses

Susan, whack the rogue canes back to 3". You can let them bloom first or not. Then the cane makes 2 or 3 laterals; cut these back to 2 or 3 leaves each and you get more branches. Etc.

Or, if the canes are flexible and 4-7' long, bend the cane in a hoop and tie it to its own base ("self-pegging"). It will make 3 or 4 laterals at the top of the arch. You can cut off the outer/downward section later if you want.

Or, something that works with some varieties not others is to pinch out the growth tips of strong basals when they are about 14" long. Be sure you get the fleshy growth tip, not just leaves. Some roses will branch in response, others will make just one shoot and keep going up.

Most shrub roses have an awkward adolescence. You have to be patient and work with them for a few years, just as you know your daughter won't be 13 forever.

What Michael said. All I'd add is that you want to whack the cane back lower than what you want it to end up being, since the rose will usually sprout more than one cane out from the cut place - that's where the branching comes from. So if you want to keep the rose around 4 feet, cut lower than 3 feet so you have room for it to grow up and branch, then keep trimming those later branches like Michael says.

If you want to keep any of these roses below 4-5 feet, I don't think even this method would work, and you'd need to move them somewhere where they can grow.

Cynthia

Paradise Found HT - the fragrance is so unusual - never smelled anything like it. The blooms are equisite with the lighter inner color and the darker edges. The flowers and scent make me almost swoon.

Second choice would be Memorial Day. The fragrance is so intoxicating - old rose I think. The color is so saturated and there are so many flowers. I get the same swoon factor with this rose. :)

Carol

Hmm. It would be between BR Cant & Clotilde Soupert. At the moment, BR Cant. But they are both amazing.

Thanks Ken, I will take a look. Sounds like a very vigorous rose and a unique color.

I really like Clotilde Soupert! Also, i have an Alba Meidiland by my mailbox, but it's like a rose mountain now. :)

Thanks guys. I've lived here for over 8 years and have never seen a fall/winter like this. I was out gardening in short sleeves yesterday which is Absolute Madness for mid October.

I am used to mild winters but usually the night time temps plummet this time of year. When I take the kids trick or treating we always end up looking like pumpkins because of all the layers.

Most of my roses (and dahlias) are blooming away, some are covered in blooms.

M

Hi Mirenda - well, the promised temperature drop has happened here in the UK with lashing north/easterly winds. Although you have been in Ireland for some time, I really had to laugh when you commented on mild winters in October. As you say, we had snow, this time last year while I have been picking raspberries until late November in some seasons. All goes to illustrate the vagaries of a temperate maritime climate - we gets lots of (short term) variation but never those extremes which afflict places like Kansas, Illinois and other exotic (to me) locales where temperatures rage between boiling and freezing across the gardening year.
So, whats happening to mine? Although my pots are still green, they are more or less static in that not a leaf has changed over the last month - only the hulthemias are still hopefully producing buds while all my others are definitely winding down. As for watering, until a couple of weeks ago, daily watering was a given but now, shifting into cooler weather, I tend to let the plants dictate their needs and hold off on the watering cans until it is obvious (by crinkly leaves) that some is needed. I can go for days or even weeks without filling a can. Trust your eyes, Mirenda - if the roses look OK, they are OK. They do not lose their leaves like trees, but drop foliage gradually over the whole winter, caused more by winds and rain rather than the very straightforward leaf-shedding in deciduous trees. I don't know whereabouts you are in Ireland but if anywhere near the west coast, you can probably stash the watering equipment till next spring and let the misty Irish climate do the work for you. Even here, in the arid east of england, I heave a sigh of relief that the incessant watering becomes less urgent.

Thank you Kim for your encouraging words!!
To be honest I'm REALLY interested in rooting, grafting & starting from seed.
I realize I have a whole lot to learn, heck im still tryin to remember the diff diseases (lol!) But I've often found myself looking at all the roses leaves, buds, stems , flower petals I'm absolutely amazed at each plants "personality" .I've gotten a pretty good grasp on how to help the roses along when they need or when to stop "loving them to death" (lol) but for whatever reason when it comes to rooting cuttings I either end up with rotting stems or they shriveled up. Ive adjusted my soil accordingly , I no longer mist them, and I only water when the soil starts to dry out. I really dont know what in the world I'm doin wrong, but everything else I try to root (including hardwood cuttings) root in two wks or less, but not the roses. Of course that doesn't mean Im not gonna keep trying ;-) May I ask what methods you use for both rooting and grafting? Did you find rooting easier to learn or grafting? Preferred methods??
Thank you for all your help!!!!
Lyna

P.S.
Sorry if you've already answered these questions.

You're welcome, Lyna! Yes ma'am, each one HAS its own personality. It's observing them then determining what other "personalities" you want to mate them to that's part of the fun of breeding.

If your cuttings are rotting, they're too wet. Whether that's due to too heavy soil, watering them too frequently or having too high humidity due to covering them, something is keeping them too wet, so they rot. If they shrivel, they're usually drying out. I'd not had success rooting roses in my new climate until I ran across the wrapping method, which I termed "Burrito Method" and detailed on my blog below. Like all the other methods, it requires tweaking to get it set just right for your specific conditions, but once you get the hang of it, the method works!

A few months ago, I received bud wood of a rose I'd sought, from a lovely lady in Northern California. The wood was quite thin and I didn't know what exactly I could do with it. I had stocks rooted, so I tried budding it, then took what wasn't really suitable and tried a modified method of rooting. It was actively growing, and it was warm, so the wrapping method wouldn't work. I treated them as I would any cuttings, then planted them very deeply in seed starter mix, in gallon cans and placed them under other potted roses where they would have higher humidity, some filtered sun, but protection from the real heat and extreme sun. Most failed, but a few ARE rooted! Many of the buds also failed, but some are remaining green after a few months and appear to be successful. I figured by planting them deep, so most of the cutting length was immersed in cool, damp soil, they wouldn't dry out. It's what I do with callused cuttings out of the wraps, and it works perfectly with them. With only an inch or so of cutting poking out of the soil, and only a leaf or two remaining on them, they could provide some photosynthesis to help carry them along until roots formed. Once it begins raining, I will transplant them from their communal pots, lifting them to the level I want them to grow. Until then, I'll let them continue forming roots. The rains will help to harden them off so they won't be lost to being subjected to too high heat, too brilliant sun and too dry conditions too quickly.

I'm also getting ready to break the tops of the root stocks so the foliage will remain attached to help keep them fed, but much of the sap flow will be interrupted so it is directed into the inserted buds, forcing them to begin growing.

I use both the traditional "T" budding method and Burling's Chip Budding Method on several different root stocks so I hedge my bet with whatever I have and want to insure takes. Using several methods helps spread the risk of loss so chances of success improve dramatically. I use VI IXL, Cardinal Hume and Sequoia's Pink Clouds. I should also obtain some VI Dr. Huey and VI Ragged Robbin. I had the Ragged Robin VI from the Heritage Rose Garden, but lost it. I also have Dr. Manner's VI Fortuniana. It's finally put out enough thicker growth to provide some decent stocks next spring, so I'll probably start messing with budding to it then.

If I have material I want to reproduce in the appropriate window here for rooting; I know it roots OK and grows OK own root; and it is of the appropriate condition for wrapping, I will wrap it. If it's summer, hence hotter (too hot for wrapping) and the material is actively growing, I'll try budding it. Whatever remains which isn't suitable for budding, I'll strike as cuttings to see if something works. But, if you wait until you have what you've been looking for, forever, to learn how to make the methods you want to use, work, you're guaranteed to fail. Murphy assures that. It's like waiting until the day before you take your world cruise to buy your new, elaborate camera you have absolutely no idea how to use. You're doomed.

Rooting and budding are about equally as easy to learn. The hardest part is determining you are NOT going to allow it to overwhelm you. If it doesn't work, don't get frustrated. Put on your diagnostician's hat, figure out WHY it didn't so you can fix the problems, then get back on that horse to show it who's boss. Kim

Here is a link that might be useful: Wrapping cuttings

The cages work fine. They don't even need to be anchored. The roses will outgrow the cages. Either I will need to prune the roses to fit in the four foot diameter cages or make wider cages. The other issue is since there is no frame which makes them less visible but they don't maintain a circle. No deer damage to the HT.

That's good news. I made some for my cousin in the country, but accidentally made them too small in diameter. Will go ahead and make some more and bigger ones -- also a castor oil spray for the voles. It's a veritable plague.

For what it's worth, my Hansa at my old house regularly defoliated with blackspot like yours, and in fact rarely had leaves on it. I got one bloom cycle of perhaps 5-6 blooms in early spring, then the whole bush would decline the rest of the summer. It was recommended by a local nursery in my early rose growing days, but I would absolutely not recommend it for disease resistance around here either. In contrast, Linda Campbell, Rountuit, and Therese Bugnet are rugosas with no BS trouble in my zone, so it seems that Hansa is particularly susceptible to the variety of BS in this area.

Cynthia

I will have to think about what to do about the hansa over the winter....may give it another chance to see if it develops bs next year.....pretty disheartening, since it is very vigous and blooms a number of times through the summer....
I have a large Therese Bugnet (not far away) and it is disease free as well.....I must admit that my Bugnet is one of my favourites!! Fragrant and vigorous as well......

Oh, & as probably mentioned in the other orange thread, I'm growing the floribunda Orangeade because of Kim's affection for it.

It's too young to comment much on yet, but I have let it throw a couple of blooms & they are the most intense, blazing, saturated !!!ORANGE!!! you can imagine--think deep, poppy orange on a rose bush. Really looking forward to it as a mature bush. It's an own-root from Vintage but I bet RU & Burling have it.

Check out Beth's blooms over on the gallery page. Lots of corals and oranges!
And gorgeous.
Susan

Glad this post has been helpful and thanks to folks for filling in points that I'd missed. Michael and Kate are right that burying the graft (the knobby part) of a rose is one of the better winter survival strategies for a rose, since the couple of inches that need to survive are under the ground, and the ground protects that graft. A little leaf coverage around the base, including well-shredded miscellaneous leaves as Seil says, can add all the protection many of us need. Since that leaf coverage also provides spring mulch around the rose, it's a terrific strategy for lazy gardeners like me!

Jim, you are indeed cruel, but not necessarily too early in your post. We had 3 feet of snow in western Nebraska last week, and parts of the Dakotas and Colorado are still digging out.

Toolbelt - don't waste any time kicking yourself over missed insights in past years of not knowing about GW. Just keep joining in the fun of the discussions, and sharing what you've learned with your friends and neighbors, so they get hooked on the rose bug too!

Zaphod, all of these principles apply to band roses as much as any other type of rose, with the added caution that the tender canes are more susceptible to things like moisture and critter gnawing. I plant all my bands in the ground too, though I try not to buy them too late in the summer, and any relatively scrawny plant is going to benefit more from winter protection than a well-established rooted plant. However, even a little canker or squashing from your protection methods can be enough to make it give up, if it doesn't have much of a root system. My method stays the same, to put protection around but not touching the rose, and one-twig wonders, I may make that protection as high as the rose (not usually a problem for scrawny runts) but make sure nothing is touching the base. Beyond that, I keep track of how poor the growth is in its first year, and I might try a more substantial plant (or heaven help me, keeping in a pot over winter like Seil suggests) if it doesn't grow fast enough to survive as a band.

Bottom line is give some basic protection a try, but don't kill baby bands with too much material over their little heads.

Cynthia

Another great post, Nippstress!

Pretty, Jeri.

Then just underplant the whole mass of them with Geranium 'Rozanne'. Simple, and you will stop passers-by in their tracks.

And easy to come by, which is no small thing.

Jeri

Since the plant's probably toast anyhow, that's likely a good idea.

I'm assuming that he dug a big hole and filled it with fresh planting material because a rose had previously died there of unknown causes.

It would be interesting to know what your "native soil" is like.

If, for instance, it's heavy adobe clay, you may just have created a non-draining "pot" full of water.

OTOH, we planted a 'Niles Cochet' at the Stagecoach Inn in Newbury Park, back in 1994. We were aware that the surrounding soil was heavy clay (we had to use a gas powered augur to dig some of the holes) AND that all water drained to where that 'Niles Cochet' needed to be.

Conventional wisdom said it was doomed to failure, but we were too tired at the end of that day to care.

That Niles grew up to be a gigantic thing, way, way over my head, with never a hint of disease, and covered with blooms throughout the year.

Go figure.

Jeri

Hi,
I have the same problem with my climbing iceberg, eden and a few other DA which I planted around my back porch. I am in central Fl where the soil is heavy clay with sand on the top. I guess the builder just put the sand to fill in the swamp before building the house. IN the summer we have a lot of rain and my roses just stopped growing and some are dying. After scouring the forum, I decided that it was due to root rot. Sure enough, When I dig up some of the roses, they barely have any root left. I transplanted Eden to a dryer location, amended the soil the same way as previous hole. Eden is on the mend now, putting out new growths and the leaves are green (as opposed to red and puny). The other DAs are just 2 tiny sticks, but I saw some new shoots today. I will be digging up the rest this week and putting hibiscus in their places. I suggest you dig up the iceberg and put it in the pot for now, until it recover while you investigate the source of the problem. Good Luck

Thanks for the link. A fun article. The book that is mentioned, "Elizabeth And Her German Garden", can be read for free at Project Gutenberg.

Here is a link that might be useful: Elizabeth And Her German Garden @ PG

I did want to read "Elizabeth and her Garden." I think reading it online would be easier than trying to find a copy. Thanks.

Thank you. Will start new thread.

Another very recent research paper on behavior of immune enhancer hydrogen peroxide on plant virus.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0076090

If you do try the cut the stem to the ground method, it may be worth while trying a H2O2 spray on the rest of the plant and the neighboring plants. If nothing else it should kill the mites, and possibly it may ward off a weak infection. This is just an educated "maybe", but until the scientists give us more to work with, this type of thinking is all we have.

Here is a link that might be useful: the above link