I am having issues with the canes being weighed down from large, heavy clusters of blooms regardless of plant type. Even my Minis are doing it. I am headed to Lowes to get stakes and ties to try to make the canes stay more upright on three bushes that are laying on the ground due to the weight of the flowers!

I feel your pain. I just can't help feeling like it's something nutritional.

My other question would be, are they older or young plants and did you prune correctly? The ones I am having problems with are younger plants. FIrst or second year plants. The older ones are doing much b etter even with longer stems and heavier blooms.

If you stake up weak stems they will grow stouter over time. Remove the stake after deadheading if the stem can support itself then. I think it is best not to prune young plants much. In spring, prune established roses to a self-supporting framework.

Most roses will stop making floppy shoots with maturity. Many Austins and other shrubs will have naturally nodding flowers, but that's a property of the necks, not the main stems.

Too little sunlight can cause spindly growth, but, as long as roses are growing vigorously, I doubt nutrition is to blame. It's generally a fallacy to think we can make roses grow in a certain way by feeding this and withholding that.

Some years, this being one of them, some of my roses have such heavy flushes of spring bloom, the canes simply can't hold the weight. We had lots of good rain this year and temperature fluctuations during the winter and early spring. These same bushes will not have the abundance of bloom in fall and the canes will adequately support the blooms.

If a bush seems to have a propensity for weak canes, I plant them with a tomato cage around them to support the bush while still allowing sunlight and airflow. If the bush continues to need support (some shrubs) the cage stays. If the bush eats the cage, a pair of wire snips during pruning season does the trick.

You can decrease the weight on canes by disbudding but I'd rather have the bloom and just stake the canes.

I am having this exact problem. One KO is 1 years old and approx 3 feet. I have a ton of blooms on it but we had an extremely windy day the other day and the KO is leaning on neighbors gate. My second KO, I just purchased in September and its limbs are going flat from blooms and high winds. My husband took a string and anchored up the large KO and will do the same for smaller one. How long does it take to get strong and stand up? My neighbor stated to buy trellis but I want them to stand on their own. I blame bloom on feeding them the rose food in early March now I have too many.

My experience is that a couple more seasons of maturity firms up those spindly canes, so I just give the wavering ones support--sometimes a twiglet that fell off a tree, although I have some nice green metal stakes with a circular "head" that can hold the weak cane also.

I've also had the problem with my Braveheart which from the beginning grew big, fat canes that spread out near the top to form large cluster blooms. Those were so heavy that the stout canes couldn't always stay upright, so I would have to prop them up. However, I discovered this year that I need to prune this rose more drastically than I do most of my shrub roses. I cut it back by more than half. It is now forming all that heavy cluster growth, but it is down lower on the cane and seems able to support it much better--as opposed to taller canes that suddenly became top-heavy with all that spreading candelabra kind of growth at the top.

Learning the individual likes and dislikes of our different roses is part of the fun of rose gardening.

Kate

If I keep my rope around my rose bush to prop it up how will it grow taller? My husband stated the throns touching the rope would hinder growth.

^ No, growth occurs only near the tip. Hardened parts of stems grow thicker but do not elongate.

Thanks michaelg, so all I have to do is put rope around middle to prop it up and not have to worry. I'll let husband know.

I didn't have this problem until I pruned heavily one winter. It' slike the roses were use to being taller and sent the stems high up on skinny stems. I also had that problem with a new yoiung rose. I think it takes time for the roses to build up stronger stems; so, hard pruning them just put us back to step A all over again made them like young roses all over again.. unless it is nutritional.