Pinching off the buds seems to matter more for those of us in cold zones, since we need more than anything to have a strong root system established before winter. Second to that is a strong cane or two, and blooms are not necessary in the first year except to establish that you have the right rose. People in warmer zones don't necessarily have to pinch off buds since they have a much longer growing season and a less harsh winter, unless they want to pinch buds to build strength to survive the hot periods. In zone 6, it will help your roses build strong roots if you pinch off the buds, but for stronger cultivars well suited to your zone it may not matter as much. Basically my philosophy has become to pinch off buds of anything that looks weak or is less than knee high with several branches, even if it's a year or two old. I can stand to do that because I have a lot of roses. Once the rose wants to bloom faster than I can pinch off the blooms (like Southern Peach or most of the Easy Elegance roses this year), I don't bother pinching and figure it's already strong enough. Bottom line is it's not necessary but it can make a difference in relatively marginal or small roses in your climate. Cynthia

Yeah that sounds like a good idea Sheila...I never thought of something like that? How do those work exactly? And Seil I didn't plant in cardboard as in 'packaging the Rose came in' I mean I had moving style boxes I broke down and then I wet them down really good to put under mulch along the slope to deter weeds. I made sure to leave about 5" or so around each plant bare with a little mulch. I did however leave the soil on it when I planted, I didn't try to make bareroot? You think that could've caused it? I just want to know how to save these ...also it rained last night...not sure how hard because it ended at least an hour or two before I woke up so when I stuck finger in soil down so deep that I had no finger left! It felt pretty moist all the way down...but idk how much rain feel so idk if that could happen from the rain we just had overnight? And today has been overcast with next to no sun all day..so sun wasn't out to dry it out.

Thanks Kristine! I just checked out that nursery. What a great selection! I remember seeing your salvia pictures from another thread and they were beautiful! Was it the burgundy seduction or raspberry delight? Both of those look quite tempting... I have a spot where I just transplanted 2 of my desdemonas to receive more sun. Now they will be bordered by 2 double delight rose trees with the desdemonas in the front/middle. I have some space behind the roses that would be against a hot wall (south facing) and I was thinking that one of those types of salvia with the beautiful magenta-ish color would maybe help the desdemonas from the scorching wall and make a pretty backdrop, especially with the dark pink/white blend of the double delights too. I've heard the greggis take the heat better than most. I'm thinking that would be a good bet! Thanks for the salvia tip!!! One of the dark purple ones would definitely look pretty with the LOS bed too, even the dark purple greggi might look good with desdemonas too...aaahh! Decisions (good problem to have). Sorry Darren for my garden planning tangent on your thread!

When any kind of woody plant is pruned back significantly it appears to grow more because it is rushing to replace the top growth that was lost. But in fact until the original total volume of the top is restored there is now less growth being produced than before the pruning. Rose hobbyists interested in having a few perfect blooms on long stems, to be cut for competitive exhibitions recommend cutting types like Hybrid Teas down short as well as thinning the bushes radically in order to have all of the plant's energy going into this small number of flowers. This treatment maintains the specimen as a cut flower production engine and not a decorative landscape feature. The existing canes of your climbers are only going to get stiffer as they get older. And the next set of canes, that come off of the ones present now are going to be all too close together as well, because of the positioning of the existing canes - the more the plants grow without having been organized in the desired way the greater the problem will become. Of course you don't want to bend any of the canes so far that they snap, but there is going to be a middle ground somewhere between getting them fully fanned out and leaving them as they are.