M. Cecille Brunner and the eves of my house

10 years ago

Madam Cecille Brunner has reached beyond the lower edge of the windows, and is passing the eves and gutter of the front of the house. Because she's tied to the trellis wires along the bottom of the windows, she's supported up to that level, but then sways freely in front of the windows, and leans out gradually from the level of the windows to up over the edge of the roof. Some canes are more vertical, and are getting trapped up under the eves, and I need a way to bring them out and have them stay out! Is there some way for me to stabilize the canes (which are thorny as stink) and prevent them from swaying (now) and whipping themselves to death (later on in winter weather)?? Could I, say, put eyebolts in the joists at the eves, and loop tie downs around the canes and attach to the eye bolts? Something better? I don't want the windows blocked, so I'm trimming those particular laterals short. The ones not in front of the window can grow long, they just need to not lean out and snag me as I work in front of that rose nor do I want them snagging the lilies and other things in front of the bush. They've shredded one beautiful white lily flower.....

ALL these long things are actually laterals, not canes from the ground or down low from other canes. These all start at 3 to 4 feet up the wall, and are either new laterals or regrowth from after the Spring flush which I trimmed. They don't want to go sideways at all, the few I've bent down to avoid the window are bending back to vertical...

Melinda

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Comments (7)

jacqueline9CA
10 years ago
How many stories tall is your house? Is this rose a Climbing Cecile Brunner, or the bush form?

See pic - we have a climbing Cecile Brunner on our 3 1/2 story house - it grew up to the roof, fell of in a Winter storm and was cut way down, grew up to the roof again, was cut down to 7 feet because of painting, and immediately grew up to the roof again.

So, I know exactly what you are talking about. My DH gets up on a ladder each Fall and ties up (or cuts, depending) the long long laterals which are either leaning out or fountaining down. He clears the 4 windows involved, and ties canes all around our bedroom window, so that the view from inside is a window framed with roses.

My point is, if your house is only one story, and it is Cl Cecile Brunner, the rose might be too big for the house. If it is the bush form just growing a bit tall, you certainly can just tie it up using eye bolts & ties as you suggest. Ours gets so heavy that my DH got some metal square plates with large metal rings coming out of them (which are used for tying up horses), and screwed them to the house.

Whatever you decide to do, this rose is very flexible regarding pruning, and I don't think you can hurt it - as I said, ours always rebounds amazingly.

Jackie

{{!gwi}}
minflick
Original Author
10 years ago
Hmmmm. 1 story home.... It SAID climbing on the pot and tag. I got it from Home Depot back in 2004, and it lived in a half barrel until the summer of 2011, and never got higher than 5 feet, including the barrel, and that was the tippy tops of just 1 or 2 canes. The tips of the new growth are probably 7 feet in the air now. Lordy. Should I keep hacking it down in front of the windows? Should I dig it up in Digging Season (after the rain starts in the Fall) and move it over by the big pine tree and just let it rip up there? I'd have to really chop it short to be able to dig and move it... Plus I'd have to navigate tree roots of considerable size to dig a new hole for it over there.

Now you have me worried!

Melinda
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'Spray Cecile Brunner' - which has been stated, rightly or wrongly to be a synonym of 'Bloomfield Abundance' - is a different, more vigorous cultivar, producing some buds with foliose sepals (visible in above photo) and deformed shapes in often quite large, branching heads not seen on 'Cecile Brunner'. True 'Climbing Cecile Brunner' displays a rambling habit, with long, arching, flowerless canes appearing after the spring bloom. Both of these are prevalent in my area, with garden centers here for some years having been supplied the spray cultivar by one or more of the wholesale growers as 'Cecile Brunner'. One large, long-established independent garden center in this market has their own 'Cecile Brunner' type that they sell small, in-house(?) propagations of under what appears to be their own completely different, made-up name (something like 'Jeni's Rose', but I really don't remember now). There may not be a galaxy of cultivariants* of 'Cecile Brunner' so much as a number of similar cultivars of independent origin, with the situation having been muddled by the growing and selling of some of this material under the wrong names. If you dig into the literature apparently unrelated forms of the same general type soon come up. Othographic note: Use of 'Mme. Cecile Brunner' as the supposed correct combination has appeared in later years. *Variably stable distinct forms resulting from variations in propagation methods or outcomes, short for cultivar variant - indicating that although differing in some way these are still considered examples of the original cultivar This post was edited by bboy on Sat, Dec 27, 14 at 12:17
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Well, perhaps more of an accident than larceny, but there was the Whit Wells' seedling , Memphis Music, which was actually Abracadabra, along with several others associated with it, as explained by this reference from Help Me Find. "I believe this rose (Abracadabra) and Memphis Music are actually the same rose that has somehow been given two names, and which has now been claimed by two breeders. I grow them side by side and they are identical in growth habit, bloom cycle and bloom size. And they even have the same sports (Top Contender is Frisco, Memphis Magic is Black Beauty). Abracadabra should have been classed as a mini-flora to begin with . It is not big enough to be a hybrid tea, even under perfect growing conditions. If anyone growing this plant has seen an Abracadabra bloom bigger than about 2 and a half inches across under garden (not greenhouse) conditions, let us know. Or better yet, photograph it and put it here with something that shows how big it is in the photo."
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jacqueline9CA
10 years ago
Melinda - for some reason the picture I posted above did not show up - here it is. This is only the bottom half of this Cl Cecil Brunner - the window in the pic is on the second story, and the rose goes up another 1 1/2 stories!

It is possible that yours stayed short because it was in a barrel, then when it got planted in dirt it said "Goody, now I get to eat this house!".

If you do have a pine tree it can grow up I think it would like that - my next door neighbor has one that has been happily growing on a pine tree for 50+ years. Don't worry about cutting it back to dig it up - that is what you are supposed to do.

Jackie
jacqueline9CA
10 years ago
Melinda - another picture to show you why, if this was my rose, I would not try to keep it at around 5 feet. This is the same rose on the same house as the first picture I posted, but it shows it from around the corner. You can see the eaves, and the bottom of this picture is about 8-9 feet off the ground. This is one (1) plant of Cl Cecile Brunner (the yellow rose on the far left is banksie lutea - another house eater - I love them.). Nuff said.

Jackie
minflick
Original Author
10 years ago
I remember this picture too.... Yeah, house eaters. It IS 'nuff said! Tall and climbing is one thing, but inhaling the house is another thing entirely. Those are gorgeous pictures, Jackie. Just beautiful.

I'll shuffle Cl. Cecille Brunner across the driveway and let her eat the fence and the pine tree! Oh well. Better to move her soon before she DOES eat the house and let her shoot up the tree and along the fence. I'd rather not give myself frustration hives by attempting to keep her in check when it's not possible to do...

Heh. My other option is to dig her up, trek down the corner to the creek access path and plant her at the river edge at the bottom of my hill and let her inhale the trees and blackberries growing out there. That would be a lot of ugly labor that would take a LONG time to pay off, so she can move across the driveway by the tree. That way I'll be able to see her along the fence from my bedroom window.

Melinda
jacqueline9CA
10 years ago
Sounds good. If you do like Cecile Brunner for the bed next to your house (where this one is now), the bush form is very mannerly - I have had two of them for 10 years, and both of them are only 4-5 feet tall. You could replace your house eater with a BUSH Cecile.

Beware, though. There is a THIRD form of Cecile Brunner (they just proved this recently with DNA analysis) which is called "spray Cecile Brunner" - it gets much bigger. Good Luck!~

Jackie
minflick
Original Author
10 years ago
I don't really want more than one of them. I like it, and THIS one plant of it has significance to me since I bought it the day after my daughter ran away from home and the day my father died (NOT a fun 24 hours...) but one thorny wonder of it is enough. I'll get something else to replace it that blooms more for me than this one does (it's only repeated when it lived for a time in a rather hot San Jose yard) with bigger blooms.

That will be fun pondering!

Melinda

M. Cecille Brunner and the eves of my house

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M. Cecille Brunner and the eves of my house

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