21,402 Garden Web Discussions | Roses

Ha...yes i guess i did know pruning it would make it grow...I guess what I WANT is the part that's already trained onto the arbor to do the growing, to reach the top!
Last year I seriously butchered the plant, including some nice looking canes, because I thought I had to destroy the powdery mildew. But it seems to be happy nonetheless.
That said I know nothing about roses as this is my first. I guess I was thinking that cutting the canes I don't have room for on the arbor would push the growth to the ones already there. I do not fully understand the growing cycle esp of climbers since I know pruning them is different. I will leave the canes...and maybe try to find a place for them, or whack them back later?

ZD makes tons of basals. Mine was like a bamboo patch. with 20 or so 8-foot canes after a few years.
The old basals, insofar as they are semi-horizontal, will bloom heavily on laterals, and this will provide the early bloom. Then, if you let the new basals grow and bloom, they will prolong the spring flush into mid-summer, blooming at the top. Then any later bloom will come at the tips of late-starting basals. In other words, ZD does not repeat very well on the old canes, but the new canes help to compensate for that. At least, that is how mine behaved.
I fear your arbor is too small for such a lusty grower. But I'm sure you want to give her a fair trial. If you want to contain growth, here are some things to try:
Withhold water and fertilizer starting at midsummer, because you aren't going to get much late bloom anyway. Let the new canes grow out and bloom. Don't prune them out in summer, because the plant will just replace them. Next spring, cut some of the canes back to various lengths (2'-4'-6'). These will make blooming laterals at the various levels for the spring flush. After a few years, when you have too many canes, begin removing 1/3 of the canes, older ones, at the base every year. I would do this after the old canes have finished their spring bloom.

For in between, how about some daffodil & narcissus bulbs? Deer don't eat them - really - they are evidently poisonous. I have even had squirrels dig them up (this is only within 24 hours of them being planted), and then leave them untouched on the surface of the soil.
Jackie

I have a 20 year relationship with RDV, so I couldn't bring myself to tossing it. I dug a hole in the slope where I have my other old garden roses. I dug up the RDV and there was a large, deep tap root so things didn't go well. I put it in a bucket of water and planted Peace in the hole. Things went well; plant and soil came out of the container undisturbed and the plant wasn't root bound. I took the soil from the hole and mixed it with soil conditioner and planted RDV bare root in the container Peace came in. If it survives the summer, I'll transplant it next winter.


Here's a link to Rose Chat Radio's coverage of the Biltmore International Rose trials. Interviews with Mike Athy, Michael Marriott, Chris Pellett and others.
Here is a link that might be useful: Rose Chat Radio - Biltmore Rose Trials Broadcast

catspa, unless said noisette is blown down during a storm and has to be cut back to almost nothing...then you should see the new growth sprout up! I hated having to cut down my Reve d'Or before it bloomed, but the bright side is that it did have a lot of gall on one of the largest canes, so I got rid of that.

Buford, I wouldn't doubt it! (I was sorry to hear your report of this mishap, by the way, in an earlier thread.) The vigor of a tea-noisette that's doing well is a force to be reckoned with. I prune the MAC on the west side of the house really hard every year (taking off whole canes -- not, heaven forbid, by shortening them!) so the path doesn't get totally blocked. She responds to the insult to her quest for world domination with ever more vigorous sprouts -- all over, but the ones lower down tend never to make it to the sun and die. Ditto Jaune Desprez, also along the west side alley and pruned pretty stiffly every year.
Anyway, here's this year's picture of the MAC against a north-facing wall that has not put a basal up in years:

Here's the MAC on the west side of the house whose sprouts from the lower half of the trunk pretty much never survive:

Here's Jaune Desprez where, again, sprouts from the lower half of the trunk rarely make it up into the light:




Andrea, you can still mulch, etc. if you plant the under plantings a little away from the bottom of the rose. You don't really want anything right up against the base of the rose anyway. Just plant something out a foot or so away and it should be fine and mask the problem. I use mini roses sometimes to do this but you can use anything, perennials or annuals for that matter.




I never shoot anyone down, unless I have actual proof. That would be defamation and could incur a lawsuit for libel. I have no ties to Kelp4Less but my brother is a physician, and suffered plenty from an employee's revenge, whom he fired last year. That's why I never bad-mouth a business carelessly, when people need to work to feed their families.
There was Neptune Fish Fertilizer and some people here boycotted them due to their Menhaden harvest. I am a truth and info. seeker, so I wrote Neptune a letter to challenge them. I was feisty, and could had been nicer. Neptune wrote back 2-pages long explaining it's wrongful info. and slander, theirs is small business with families and children to feed. They sent me a press-release newspaper clipping on the facts.
I posted Neptune's letter in the Antique Roses Forum, and Ingrid apologized for believing in the wrong info. about Neptune. I respect Ingrid for her fairness and integrity.
I tried 2 products from Kelp4Less: monopotassium phosphate worked wonder: double the blooms on 2 bushes.
Their Iron Sulfate sucks ... killed 2 azaleas with sensitive surface roots, but was OK for my white pines (deeper roots). Then I checked U. of Extension and they said Iron Sulfate burns. So it's the product itself, and not who sell it.
The gypsum I got from local Menards, twice more expensive, didn't work, may be the granules were too big, and could not be dissolve. That's why I want to buy the powder- gypsum from Kelp4Less, to mix in water with citric acid, so the calcium will be released to the root zone.
I told Kelp4Less I'm going to test their 2-20-20 product, recommended by U. of Illinois Bulletin of salt-index. They told me go ahead, they have full confidence of their product against MiracleGro. I get zero discount for doing the experiment, that's why I respect them.
This post was edited by Strawberryhill on Sat, May 25, 13 at 15:34


Jackie, I don't know about leaflets. Many plants in commerce are labeled "Improved Blaze," supposedly a sport that is identical except for better repeat bloom. But people have posted that they found no difference in repeat bloom. I thought that in asking about "original," you wanted to exclude "improved." So I guess I was over-thinking, sorry.


I definitely know that the white is not aphid skeletons. I've seen a few of those before this white mildew(?) appeared.
Luckily I haven't noticed many new bugs lately, but I still plan on returning the Bayers...once I find that evil receipt!

It's a sport. Many roses will have flowers of a different color now and then. I have a Roseberry Blanket that has sported light pink on a few canes for 2 years now. I'm going to try to propagate it.
I've had white and half white flowers on roses, clematis and azaleas. Usually in cooler weather.

Yes, it's a sport. During the forming of the bud something caused a small genetic mutation to occur and the resulting bloom is two colors instead of one. This type of sport is rarely stable and can't be propagated. Some sports that happen can be because the genetic mutation is further up the line. If you take a cutting of the sporting cane and root it and it reproduces the different bloom then it is a stable sport and a new variety. Sports happen more frequently than you think and have resulted in many new varieties. Keep watching your roses and you'll find other examples I'm sure.





I found 2 websites that address the nitrogen testing problem. One from Cornell Univ. and one from Utah State Univ.
They are different, but the same. Seems as though N is too hard to test accurately.
Thanks. I wouldn't have looked any further without input from this forum. Now, as suggested, I will let the plants tell me if they require something.
ak
Available nitrogen is transitory in the soil. Once it evolves into the nitrate form, it washes out of the soil. But with organic N sources containing proteins, bacteria are at work breaking them down and liberating available N as urea (which evolves into ammonium and finally nitrate). In cool, wet soils, there may be a temporary shortage of available N, because the bacteria need warmth and air. Also, if you applied compost that is not fully finished, that can cause a temporary shortage.
If the plants are actually short of N, the leaves will be an even pale green all over the plant. As Jim noticed, they are good and dark.