Luanne--Your roses are amazing as usual. When you say "the ones I cut with an upward facing bud eye," what exactly do you mean? Are you talking about the spot where the leaves connect to the canes or something different? If so, how do you determine what is upfacing and what is not? I suppose I should know this, but apparently I don't. Also, what is 'bloodmeal?' And one more question--what kind of manure did you use? If I could grow roses half as beautiful as yours, I would be quite content. I am using alfalfa and mulching with a manure mixture. I am also using mychorrhea as I saw an earlier post by you with regard to this wonderful fungus. I just started this 'feed the soil' process this year and want to give my roses the best amendments possible, while also enhancing the entire soil system. I think its great that you experimented this way with your garden and are sharing the results with the rest of us. This is the type of exchange I hope for on this forum. Thank you.

Luanne...GORGEOUS!!! But then yours always are.

Mari

This year is worthless as a test as the Easter Freeze destroyed my first bloom and killed many canes on the roses that survived.
This was in the middle of a drought that has now reached "extreme" and we are at least 14" below normal for the past six months.
I have yet to see blooms on the majority of my roses.
Sorry to be a spoil sport, but my reality sucks.

Ann, you're not being a spoil sport, you are just really discouraged. I'm sure anyone who is going through a rose season like yours is also going to be very disappointed. Here's hoping you have a wonderful fall flush; it's got to rain sometime.
Judith

Wow! "Aftermath" not. "Richly deserved rewards" more like it.

I'm with Ann. I took the plunge and pruned my two Austins (Mary Rose and Redoute) in December ala David Stone. I watched over them as they leafed out early and were laden with buds. Then the frost came....

But they did look good! I've still go to work on creating an outer support system for roses that have floppy canes (the prince and Tamora come to mind).

What the David Stone workshop did for me is get DH interested. He just got his first pair of Felcos yesterday. Be afraid. Be very afraid......

Anne what happened to you is a little outside the scope of pruning and I'd be equally depressed. Foodie, I used common bags of chicken manure but the real miracle is that Mango Mulch that you get at the Grab 'n Grow in Sebastopol. Buy it by the yard, 2 yards went on my garden and more would have been better. It is composted duck doo, yard waste, tree bark and alfalfa pellets that I know of. Roses think it is the bee's knees. If you are on your way stop at the Petaluma pet food place and get large bags of blood meal and bone if you haven't done it in a while. They also sell 80# bags of alfalfa--2 cups to the plant, 1 cup of the blood although you can get the blood at the grab 'n grow. The upward facing bud eye is the little red swelling that can be any where but is found on the topside of the cane facing upwards as opposed to outward. You cut right afterward and the stem heads skyward. I Don't think that is David's fault, just an innovation I happened onto keep Topaz Jewell from eating Distant Drum's lunch.
In the meantime I hope you get all the rain you need Anne and you too Buford and the felcos in the wrong hand is food for sleepless nights...the little barricades are working fine on Buff Beauty and some others.
la

I did get out early enough to prune as an experiment one monster of an unidentified OGR 'a la David Stone' and at the same time I removed the many stakes, ties and strings surrounding it. (David would have been appalled if he could have seen it; I was embarrassed just thinking about the mess I had at home with this particular rose when he showed us his "how not to support a rose" photo!)
And yes, it worked! The rose is much, much prettier this year: no straggly, leaning-on-its-neighbor nonsense. It's gracefully arching and completely loaded with buds and flowers. Cutting back in late winter really did encourage MORE flowering, and did not cut off all the season's bloom as I had feared in the past spring pruning of once bloomers would do. I'm totally convinced.

And Luanne, your photos sure do show some gorgeous roses there - wow! :-)

Ann, I know how frustrated you are and the thought of your beautiful garden so dry makes my heart weep. So sorry for you!

Anne

You're the only one I know of who would dare grow MAC as a shrub. And you are doing it well, it looks great.

Nobody grows Marie Pavie like you. Well, maybe Patricia. Beautiful (and I know the fragrance is great). Mine hates me, but puts off incredible fragrance.

Good to have you back home, and posting again, you globetrotter you.

Randy

But Ann does make a good point. This year was quite different. Everywhere -- in my garden, in the Cemetery, everywhere we went EVERYTHING BLOOMED AT ONCE.
It was a deleriously wonderful spring here.
(And no, we did nothing different. Nature did tho.)

Jeri

Luanne, your pictures are glorious.

Jerome

Glorious roses in your garden, of course, Luann. Thanks for sharing!

I listened to the talk on the forum and pruned my roses harder than ever before, but the spring was not one that allowed to me to check results. We had a warm dry nonwinter and a warm dry spring, followed by a WET summer. All totally out of sync with the usual seasonal pattern. So it's hard to say exactly what effect the pruning had. I certainly don't see that it brought any problems, in any case, and will continue to prune my roses harder than I have in the past. I did cut back my Tea and Noisette climbers hard after their spring bloom, hoping for more contained growth and a good flowering--which latter I had this year, only it was way over my head--for next year. 'Noella Nabonnand' grew ten-foot canes last summer with no particular encouragement.

I hope the weather becomes more 'normal' soon. An autumn would be nice.

Melissa

Thanks for all the info Luanne. I will be heading up that way soon to pick up more roses from Vintage, so I will also pick up some of that good mulch, alfalfa and blood meal. I will look for that little red swelling on my roses tomorrow, just to familiarize myself with finding it.

J.B. those swellings are more easily discerned in the early Spring. Cut just after a shoot that is pointed sky ward.
la

Paula sent me the dvd of David's workshop which was really enjoyable. My main concern with trying to prune differently was to get some roses in control that I was always staking off the pathways. For some roses this was really successful. Other roses I think just have their own agendas. Ispahan was a dissappoinment. There were few blooms and after bloom time it has put on huge growth so that now I'm not sure what I want to do with it. I did notice at Mottisfont a rose that had some canes tied to other canes. I'll probably try that. This was a fabulous spring. I really think the weather had more to do with blooms than pruning.

Mendocino. In the DVD David talks about a summer haircut for the spring flowering roses like Ispahan. He advises you can take some old wood out then, but also bring them back down under control. During the sectino where he demonstrated pruning in the field he talks about it and then also at the very end where I interview him we go over it again.

We pruned all our roses at the nursery this way and despite the freeze they came out lovely. I can say we are far better material to take cuttings from and the bushes are much fuller and rounder even after pruning this way only once.

Also, everyone should keep in mind David comments it takes 2-3 years to bring a bush to the point where it will support itself.

Beware the instant gratification syndrome! LOL

Luanne, add me to the ranks of those impressed you've got MAC growing as a shrub. And such a beautiful one at that.

Did you attend the workshop upon which the DVD was based?

You've definitely piqued my curiosity. Thanks for sharing.

Bill

Books say prune to an outward facing budeye, but this is because books think roses are HTs, which grow upright and crowded. For sprawly or floppy shrubs, the opposite is better.

It a cane is nearly vertical, a leaf-joint on the side of the cane toward the center of the bush has an inward-facing budeye. If a stem is arching or spreading, these same budeyes would be upward-facing, on top of the semi-horizontal cane. For more upright growth, you can prune to an upward-facing budeye near the top of the arch or wherever you think the cane will be able to stand up permanently. If there are no leaves, you can find a leaf scar, which is a slightly curved horizontal line on the bark.

Brava! We learned our lessons well.

Buford - how old is the Prince? Mine are in their 3rd year and I am noticing they are now growing thick new basals which stand straight and do not flop even with a spray of blooms at the top.

George

Michael, you explain it better than I do, heads up JB.
William, I did attend that workshop, got down and dirty with David Stone, looking for bud eyes, dead canes, watching,writing etc. I can't say I got it all assimilated and yes it was a fabulous Spring. Many of my plants had crossed the 3 year mark but by and large, I think it was very helpful. I think it remarkable that this is the year I did not use any chemical fertilizers and yet they look like they've been gulping steroids.
MAC thanks you, she gets a haircut to 4 feet about 3 times a year--the Spring flush is her best and she was dazzling this year. But even really floppy roses like Out of Yesteryear are shaping up nicely.
la

Thanks Michael and Luanne--I think I get it now. I have a few arching growers now, so this will be particularly useful.

Is David Stone's DVD still available sounds like you learned some valuable leassons.

Florence

Unless I am missing something from the internet download I would not advise the download method. Very disappointed. There are large skips with just audio. Very bad. I think I am wishing I had just got the dvd. I do not think they should sell the download.

I agree. The download is not worth the money. The quality is bad. It can only be viewed in a very small format.

There is a DVD? where would one find that?

Luann, I am so happy you have been able to stay away from chemicals. I have done so myself this year. I have used Serenade..no new BS this year so far. I have had many bees and lately a Dragonfly in my garden. Makes me happy. I am even learning to tolerate hornets and wasps

We discontinued the download for the very reasons mentioned. Please contact us privately if you are having issues with a download version you purchased.

Paul

I used this method and honestly, it scared me to death. Right after I finished, I thought "what have I done" :-). Even though we had the freeze and the roses had to be "re-pruned" and lost some canes, I've found that my garden looks less like a jungle and more like a garden. The bushes have a lovely shape and they are still large, just not unkempt looking. Lot's of new basals this year, lots of blooms, even though they initially were delayed from the freeze damage. It's not been a "good year" for us, garden wise but I am still pleased with the results.

Carol

For me it is a learning process. After a dozen years or so of pruning my roses, I was used to knowing where to cut almost by instinct. My own method was not the same as David Stone's but it was similar enough that I find myself slipping back into old habits if I'm not paying attention. A more radical change might have been easier. As it is, I find myself doing things the old way, and missing finer points that make a real difference.

But looking at Luanne's beautiful results, and pictures of Mottisfont, I can see that it is well worth the effort to keep plugging away at it until I finally get it.

Ann dear, I will hope for a better season for you next year. Nature is still the boss, no matter what we do.

Rosefolly

If you did the download contact Paul. I did and am happy with his professional matter of handling it. Now I am eager to finally get to see it.

I have both the David Stone and the Peter Beales DVD and they are worth it.

Because I started with HTs, I was used to pruning a lot in the spring. Each year my neighbor comes over and says 'wow, you really hacked those down', like clockwork. Then she comes over a few weeks later and says 'wow, those really took off, you're lucky.'. Of course now she wants me to help her with her poor pathetic rose tree that she has in almost total shade.

I even noticed that my hydrangeas, which I doubted would bloom this year because I had to cut them down to the ground after the freeze, are back, and look better than ever!

Also, I just bought the AHS Pruning and Training book. I saw it in the store and it looked great so I ordered it online. A great reference for any pruning and training.