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Another 'silly' question about rose leaves?

14 years ago

I was checking out my climber Westerland today. I have it covered up for winter, and the canes are wrapped in burlap. I gently untied the burlap around the canes to just check on the rose (I did of course rewrap the rose after). The stems all still look very healthy and nice from what I can see, which is good. However, the rose STILL has ALL of it's leaves on! Now, I know I've been told here to not worry about the leaves, that they'll come off when the rose is done with them.

My question is this...

When I finally do get ready to unwrap in spring and unmound, if the leaves are still on even then, do I clip them off? Or just not do anything at all to the leaves still on from last season? This is my first overwinter really for a climber.

Thanks from a rose newbie,

Cathy

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Comments (4)

paparoseman
14 years ago
I usually remove any leaves that do not get removed by the spring pruning or that have not fallen off on their own.

Lance
karl_bapst_rosenut
14 years ago
My experience;
New buds growing from the base of each leaf will cause the leaf to come off when the new leaves grow.
Any old leaves still on the bush when I prune usually are pruned off or drop by themselves.
Last year's leaves are useless to the bush and a possible source of disease due to overwintering fungus spores.
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york_rose
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I remove the leaves in the spring, and as karl rightly notes, they usually get pushed off by the rose.

I also make a point to not leave them on the ground near the bush. If you suffered a black spot infection on that rose the previous year there's decent reason to suspect the old leaves may be harboring remnant bits of the fungus, which can successfully overwinter in infected leaves. I believe I've read the fungus will push out spores from dried up dead leaves on the ground near the bush and those spores can get spattered up on the rose's new growth during rain storms.
kentstar
Original Author
14 years ago
Thankyou all for the information. I'll wait to see what I see in spring, which I can't wait for. Everything here is so snowy, cold and bleek right now.

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