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No ID yet but neglected rose needs pruning.

12 years ago

I just moved into a new old house and the lady loved landscaping but moved to assisted living a few years ago. There are 2 rose bushes that I'm concerned about. One of them has started flowering but the other only has a few leaves and buds. I didn't think either was flowering until I looked WAY up into the tree on the other side of the fence. The canes if straightened have got to be at least 20 feet tall, and that is probably underestimating. There is nothing in the way of leaves at all that I can see, just these huge yellow blooms. I don't even know where to begin pruning these. I don't see any suckers. My tempation would be to get rid of all the dead looking canes, but honestly they all look dead, just are obviously not. Do I scratch and look for green, get rid of any without green and severely prune down the ones with green? I don't even know how to get the canes down from the tree as I don't think a ladder will fit there. They will just have to hang dead until I can maybe see them enough come winter. I tried taking a picture but honestly it is hard to see in picture the bloom in all the leaves of the tree.

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Comments (3)

buford
12 years ago
Golden Showers? I have one and the canes can get pretty long. The blooms start off a bright yellow, but then fade quickly to a lighter color and shatter pretty quickly.
jacqueline9CA
12 years ago
I would not prune it at all until it leafs out more, and you find out what kind of rose it is. Can you take the best picture of the entire thing you can, and then use a long long handled pruner (used to get apples, etc out of trees) to cut off a bit that has blooms on it, so that you can take close up pictures of the flowers and post here? To do good, not harm, pruning, it is helpful to know at least what type of rose it is - once blooming, modern climber, etc.

Jackie
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Seil - Re. your last comment and I know we touched upon this topic (new rose grower here). I've yet to wrap my head on budded canes and how fast or long or not it will form a ~bush framework~ when it may come with as little as 3-4 canes forming a 270 degree plane of view. I guess I will see the framework growth - as a result of pruning and see how it grows. This is what has got me completely thrown off on own-root vs grafted.... ---- In my world, I like pruning woody shrubs back hard sometimes, to promote new canes and let old canes die. I just can't see how this works on a grafted situation..
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hbwright
Original Author
12 years ago
Okay, it has actually started to grow some since I last found the plant. I'm not around that side of the house yet to work on it, still exploring the yard. I got some pictures that may help. I don't think it is Golden Showers. It doesn't look like the blooms that I have seen from that plant before.

This picture shows how tall the plant actually is. I have circled the tallest blooms that I saw in the tree and a cane that has grown up and started curving down again in this picture.
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This one shows where it is coming out of the ground and a horizontal cane that has vertical growth coming off of it. And lovely blackspot!
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A close up of the lower bloom.
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And the other bush that I personally think will have to be shovel pruned.
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I have my work cut out for me with weeding this whole yard. I really want to save the original plantings just kind of sentimental value. I know the lady loved this yard and worked hard on it up into her mid 80s. It would be lovely to be able to visit her and bring her some blooms from her garden.

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