I have never once seen a speck of evidence that wirebrushing makes any difference whatsoever.

And if they are that puny -- why prune them at all?

I think The Prince carries maybe 3 canes here. And he never took well to pruning, so we stopped doing that.

Jeri in Coastal SoCal

Gruss an Aachen does very well here, lots of new canes every year. I don't mind giving them extra care if they need it. In my experience roses respond very well to liquid organic fertilizers with seaweed extract and other stuff. If you do someting things happen :-)

Best of luck

Thanks so much! I have had some luck with wire brush in the past, but don't think I will do this with the prince if he is that touchy.
All advice is welcome. I really do love my roses, and if I have to buy a couple more, so be it!

I assume these are grafted? Try some epson salts - that will sometimes give them a boost. And ditto the don't prune it. Let the rose recover on its own first.

I'm done with one cane wonders! If I really love the variety I'll try again with a new copy. Here where the weather is so mild and the soil is good, it's the most probably the individual plant's fault.

Where the weather isn't so forgiving, more TLC and patience is a reasonable approach.

There's something to be said for getting several copies of one variety. If all thrive, or if two thrive and one malingers, or if all three malinger, it gives you a better idea of what's going on.

With small own-root plants, don't prune. Every leaf helps the plant grow. Transplanting into pots will have caused a major setback, so you will need to be patient.

With older grafted plants that should have a substantial root mass, I cut the OCW back sharply to see if it will produce multiple basals, and if not, I pitch it. These are plants that have declined for whatever reason, for example not tolerating severe winter damage each year.

I had luck with on caners, just a little bit of epsom or alfalfa water, and I'm not sure if this did anything, but I mixed a tiny bit of rooting compound in the water. That might have helped, or maybe it was just that I was fertilizing them more offten than the other plants and watching them closely.

thanks sso much to all! It is amazing how much you can forget over a 2 yr. period. Those were good reminders. It is just pouring outside today so the alfalfa,coffee grounds , cotton seed meal etc , should all be doing its stuff. The roses look better than they did a week ago, but the shape they were in was disgusting.

Charleney, I'm sorry to hear about your illness and ailing roses and hope you are both better soon.

First thought here is that you might not have done your roses a favor by putting coffee grounds on them. I once did that to a healthy azalea and it _suffered_ very noticeably. If you want to use coffee grounds, I'd suggest doing it only for plants in the ground where its impact would be less concentrated, and also not putting very much at all at one time on any one plant. I know I've seen threads where people rave about coffee grounds on roses, but I'd go easy, easy on that, given what I know for sure its impact was on my azalea. I may have overdone the coffee grounds thing here when I tried it; perhaps just a thin scatter thrown out once or twice a year would have caused no harm at all. Anyway, you might consider scraping off some or most of the coffee grounds if what you put there was a heavy application.

Grs An Aachen will do well even without enough sun, so your overcast weather is probably not responsible for its problems. It's a little leggy with too much shade, but nothing like a one-cane thing, and still very healthy. And the cold probably doesn't account for its problems either unless your winter was a lot worse than ours was; all three of our Grüss An Aachens have been absolutely cane hardy here with temperatures down to 11, 12, 13 degrees this exceptionally cold winter. They look wonderful now and I already see at least one flower bud.

I don't know what MMM clone is, but would guess that just making sure the soil has a good organic component in its composition would be all that you'd need to do if it's acidic enough.

We had something like your problem happen here when a rose was planted in a spot that was elevated but not nearly enough for our low clay soil in that area of the yard, given the unusually wet year we had last year. With really wet soil starting just maybe 8-10 inches down, there's so little dirt at a level where the roses' roots can function that the rose doesn't have the strength to send up a normal number of canes.

Perhaps your wet weather was a problem because the growing spot is less than ideally elevated for good drainage in wet times? If that's the problem, just getting the roses into a well-drained pot situation ought to fix them up very soon, if you don't do anything to the soil in the pot to stress the roses further.

Of the two roses we had in an insufficiently elevated spot, the one ailing the most recovered quickly as soon as it was moved to a pot with nothing more than normal organic materials incorporated into the dirt. However, the one that seemed less threatened didn't get moved right away, and with one thing and another, we didn't get around to moving it until a couple of months later, after it was too late. But the one we moved quickly enough recovered beautifully and survived the winter in perfect condition. It looks wonderfully healthy now. Fingers crossed for you now that you have that good luck with yours too!

Best wishes,
Mary

P.S. The roses are counting on the few leaves they have remaining to get the strength they need for sending out new roots; don't cut any of that growth off now! You can always trim them later, after the roses recover, if you want to shape their form then.

Thank you all! Actually I am very well! But the roses are a little better every day. I think time and patience is going to help as much as anything. Hope I can send a pic of them when they are healthy.

On the other hand, roses and azaleas are very different plants, from very different families. It may well be that there is something about raw coffee grounds that damages both azaleas and also roses, but that isn't guaranteed. Azaleas are hybrids of various wild plants in a subset of the genus Rhododendron, which is in the heath family (Ericaceae). Just about everything in the heath family is famous for being both very particular about soil conditions, and in particular wanting the soil to be unusually acidic.

Meanwhile roses are all in the genus Rosa, in the rose family (Rosaceae), and they usually also want "typical good gardening conditions" (including soil acidity that is either neutral or only mildly acidic).

I don't know whether uncomposted coffee grounds damage roses (they may well do so), but I wouldn't automatically conclude that they would do so because they did so to azaleas. Now that I know they damage azaleas I would avoid adding them as a dressing to other members of the heath family (azaleas, Daphne, Enkianthus, heaths, heathers, Japanese andromeda, mountain laurel, rhododendrons, sourwood, blueberries, cranberries, lingonberries, wintergreen, etc.)

Have used coffee grounds for years, and the roses love them. At least for me. I lasagna garden around my roses though and have gorgeous soil and worms because of it.

carolinamary,

I have one rose planted in a clay soil area that was never ammended and only has been top dressed recently,(last 2 years.) It grows many canes, to many, they crowd each other. LOL
I have coffee grounds around it right now, to get the worms
churning that soil for me. I only plan on using one to two application of coffee grounds per season.

the earthworms are the best little tillers that money cannot buy. I wish I had 50 -100 lbs.

Caffeine is moderately toxic to plants, but used coffee grounds don't have a lot of caffeine. Average-sized roses will be happy to get a cup or two at a time, a few times a year. CGs contain about half as much nitrogen and phosphorus as alfalfa, but hardly any potassium, which leaches into the brew. Or you can add CGs to the leaf-pile where their nitrogen will speed decomposition and make the compost richer.

I kilt my first Gruss en Auchen. Bought another for a neighbor and it thrived, but did not last the winter.

Two years ago I tried again. I am hoping to finally be successful. It looks like it. FAB blooms last year.

F.L.
I.A.G.L.

ok another update. One of the OCW is (I think) not going to make it. Last windstorm took its tender new growth off. Sometimes I wonder if it is all worth it! Doggone it!

Charleney - it is worth it. I have been struggling with my roses for three years now, and this year I can truly see a difference. They are looking soooo good. I lost a few, sp'd a few, learned a lot, and yes, I still have some one cane wonders (Mr. Lincoln, America), but I am feeling more confident that I can get these going. Or, if not, they will be replaced with something more splendid.

It is worth it!