I feel your pain. My roses did "too good" and flopped on to the ground as well. I was as extreme as you could possibly be and cut them all down to original tripod of canes when I bought them in the hope that the roses would throw out meatier canes that I could work with in the future to make a more upright shrub. I literally have nothing left now as I'm waiting for the new canes to sprout. In your case, I'd just look for canes that are meaty enough to support growth in the future. Your roses look somewhat mature, so you could cut them back hard, but probably nowhere near as hard as I cut mine back......which you couldn't cut back any harder anyways.

Ah yes. I've been experiencing the 40 days & 40 nights of raining myself. The June flush is a goner but I've been deadheading between rain storms (not cutting back canes but just popping off the spent blooms) just in case it dries up sooner than predicted.

Short of broken canes from extreme bowing I'm not too worried about the rose bushes. I've selected a nice bunch (125+ rose bushes) of disease-resistant varieties. There's an fugly set of leaves here & there but nothing to get hysterical about.

In the grand scheme of things, it could be much worse.

Rain happens. If you think it needs 'fixing', go out and pick up the canes on top and shake them a bit. That should get enough water out of the flowers that they'll stand up a bit. Then you can do the same thing to the next layer underneath. Usually you can get enough layers to straighten up enough that it looks like a fairly intentional mound.

Thanks for the replies. I'm not so worried about the way it looks (well maybe a little as it was so beautiful) but...there are so many layers that they will never dry out between rains.

MG, yes tried that a little, but gave up as it started raining again! Tomorrow is supposed to be the one dry day this week. So maybe after work I can try shaking again.

runwithscissors, (like your unique name) so far it looks, as much as I can see, that no canes are broken, just very badly bent.

jeffcat, sounds like you are in the same boat as me. Hope your roses rebound for you.

I am thinking that I will take a wait and see approach. Maybe over the weekend we will get a break from the rain and then perhaps I can do some shaking and deadheading and see what the results are. Will keep you posted.

My problem lies in that I planted my roses last year, so they have only been in the ground for a year and most of them are "exploding" on the canes from last year, because I didn't prune them back far enough during the spring. Mine flopped even when it was dry, so I had no choice but to cut back. Knowing canes won't sprout canes larger than ones they already have, I just cut it them down to nothing in the hope that they sprout more substantial canes.

Sounds like my summer last year! I have been known to go out with a broom and poke it around and shake the roses to get as much rain off as possible. It does help.

For what it's worth, after about an entire month of rain every day last June, the roses did recover from their floppiness after pruning off the first flush.

Rain happens and the plants will spring back. The only things I might do would be to dead head to reduce the weight a bit and then I'd build a little rail about 10" high beneath them to allow the water to pass thru and keep the bottom layer from rotting on the ground. A couple of bricks and a broom handle would be sufficient.

Our June flush has been ruined by rain in four of the last five years but this year the rain has held off so the flush is pretty good so far. Some roses have strong necks and blooms that don't collect water so much but they don't tell you this in the catalog descriptions. Also, whites get ruined and roses with many fine petals ball up and you have botrytis everywhere. Rain is the enemy this time of year and the only solution is to cover the garden. I've almost done it in the past but it was too much work. You need to put up posts and a framework so that you can put up and easily take down a fine mesh netting that can protect the roses from heavy rain beating down. It is either this or a greenhouse which would be even more expensive and more work.

Can you tie the canes up ? I put a 4 ' length of re-bar into the ground abt. 1 foot, next to each of mine, and tie up the longer canes with the green velcro plant-tape from HD... keeps them up off the ground and from beating around in the wind... sally

sympathy to you. Catsrose is right though, your bushes will be OK and if you could raise them a little bit - I use short canes with strong thick wire which allows the plants to flop over without lying completely flat but broom handles or dowel is brilliant as it will not cut into the rose canes- they do drain really quickly too. Deadhead and feed - a lot of leaching occurs in heavy rain - they will roar back into a new flush.

We had a dry, warm and very windy day today. When I got home from work tonight I took a broom handle and lifted and shook the canes gently. It did help some, especially on the Champlain roses. The Morden Belle not as much. The MB canes are long and naturally arch downward. So that is not much help when trying to lift them. But the good news is the MB bushes are already throwing long new canes skyward which will help to fill in the "empty in the middle" look. So....not all is lost. Also lots of buds on the MB low canes and they are turning upward toward the sun.

No time to deadhead tonight, but that is the plan for the weekend. Also lots of petals fell off when I shook the canes with the broom, so I think that helped too.
I think you can see the new canes here and maybe some of the buds turning upward on the low canes.
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What this bush seems to do is throw long canes that then arch, then on the somewhat lateral/arched canes other shoots are again produced growing upward. Almost like pegging without having to peg the canes.

VanGrootenDorst is on the ground. Its really the only rose I dont prune hard in spring, and it is as tall as the garage. Was... I am going to cut it waist high or lower and just take my chances.