What I have found is that alfalfa does help produce new basals. That and exposing the graft or rootball to as much sunlight as you can in the late winter/early spring. I've had roses that haven't put out a new cane for years, but if something changes in the garden, a tree branch is removed, a shrub dies, and that rose is then more exposed to direct sunlight, and they put out new canes. My Golden Showers, which I've had for 12 years, put out 4 new canes this spring. I was pretty amazed. The only thing that changed is that the shrubs that were in front of the base of the rose had bad die back this past winter and I had to cut them back to remove the dead wood. So the sun was then directly on the base of the rose.

Alfalfa

If last spring is any indicator...prune them to the ground next spring! Everything that I had to take down to the graft because of the bad winter, and that was a lot of stuff, sent up all new canes this season.

Perhaps feeding some of the resources suggested may help encourage basals, but the sure-fire "cure" is pruning at least one of the oldest, woodiest canes down very low, where you want the new growth to emerge from. Particularly with HTs, rejuvenating the plant through low pruning of one or two (depending upon the cultivar and your climate) canes to the base is often what is required to stimulate the desired new growth where you need it. Kim

Thanks so much everyone, I appreciate the advice very much.

You're right on with the examples you used, Cynthia. Both of your red HTs are descended from Charles Mallerin. CM was, sixty-plus years ago, a nice, darker red, scented HT, but he has the infuriating insistence upon growing one, tall, thick cane and leaving the rest of the plant dwarf in comparison. Not really a "climbing" type cane, just one which you WISHED the rest of the plant would live up to, but never does. Notice the "Notes" on the rose's HMF page. I grew him own root thirty-plus years ago and he definitely needed budding. Gorgeous flower with a real snoot full of smell, but a truly awful plant. Add a more "inhibiting" climate or conditions and it only gets worse. So, yes, in your examples, they come by their "cussedness" quite honestly! Kim

Here is a link that might be useful: Charles Mallerin

I appreciate the info, Cynthia and Kim.

I second the advice of removing old canes--I do it in the early Spring when there isn't much else to do while the ground is frozen.

If the goal is to improve the look of the garden, perhaps planting problem HTs in groups of three or four may achieve the results you want. I've done so to get lots of blooms and foliage in a relatively small space. But, I don't recommend this for exhibiting roses, as the close spacing often results in blooms with stem and foliage issues.

I have an old 'Savoy Hotel' that has only one and a half basal canes, but it branches freely and blooms heavily on a decent-looking plant. It is cane hardy here, so I prune fairly high and let it keep doing its thing. The old thick cane shows no sign of wearing out, so far. It's sort of an accidental tree or standard rose.

Hi
I am in zone 9b and right now the weather has cooled down a bit. The roses have been showing a lot of growth and setting buds except for Alnwick. It is sickly looking with a few leaves on thin,wimpy canes. I am wondering if I can prune it as Roseseek suggested? I have applied some granular fertilizer and a cup of alfalfa pellet yesterday.
Thanks

Well whaddya know - Kim you always find a way to bring order out of the rose chaos out there. I rarely pay as much attention as I should to common heritage among roses, but the Charles Mallerin factor would make sense in both these reds. At least they're more hardy for me than the original Charles Mallerin - I tried that one at least 3 times in successively better spots and it was an immediate death in our winters every time, as have been most direct Mallerin roses I'm afraid. At least Uncle Joe is resolutely hardy, just stubborn. Glad I put him at the back of the bed, and he rises above the teas in that area like a stern guardian of all those fussy, frothy ladies. They seem to form enough of a skirt around him, and he's MUCH too dignified at the suggestion of anything like a skirt around his solitary Cane of Dignity.

Zack - I've often wondered what it would look like to have a combined planting of one-cane wonders next to each other. I'm picturing something like a bamboo forest of single rose canes with a single rose at the top of them (at least in the case of my Mr. Lincoln). It would certainly have novelty to recommend it, particularly if they all grew to the same heights, and I like the idea of letting them duke it out. In my yard, I'm not going to spend the extra garden space on multiples of roses that don't want to branch out, since I'd rather have them like pedestals among more full roses (like Uncle Joe the Overseer of Hussy Teas).

Michael, I totally agree about Savoy Hotel. It's almost always cane hardy for me, but last winter I had to prune it back to about 6" on a single substantial base cane. I was worried that I might lose that last cane or that it would be a wimpy growth for a season, but not to worry. Savoy Hotel is a trooper for branching out nicely, and it's one of my top 10 steady bloomers (maybe even top 5) with gorgeous deep baby pink blooms that last extremely well. I didn't take any pictures of her this spring because I took so durned many last spring, but she was basically back to this state by late June this year even after pruning mostly to the ground. Gotta love her!

Cynthia

Here is a "recipe" that seems to work for me.

Eliminate competition from tree roots. Make sure the plant has plenty of sun. You may want to move the plant in the next few months, before the Spring growing season.

Don't let the plant flower all season--remove all the buds. But, keep all the leaves.
Spray often enough to prevent any fungal diseases. Use mulch to retain moisture and prevent weeds. Pull all weeds around the plant. Don't grow anything else near the roses.

Watering--you don't want the roots to be constantly wet, as they need oxygen as well as water. It depends on your soil and drainage. I add lots of leaf compost to improve drainage.

The following Spring, remove all the twiggy growth and old canes.

Years ago, I had a bunch of single cane roses, but within a year or two, I as able to grow them into bigger plants. Even the reds like Chrysler Imperial and Mister Lincoln. But, I do have the advantage of plenty of cold chill, for plants that need it, as well as a decently long growing season--6 months.

I noticed that if some roses get left alone with the very old canes for a long time, they have a harder time making new ones. I like to take the oldest one out after a robust new one comes in but sometimes the plant just will not make any new thick canes. I have a very old Felicia on one thick woody cane and for no reason whatsoever, this year put up another cane from the base. I tried cutting all old canes down to the ground on a Tiffany once and got new canes but they were not as big and productive as the old ones were. I was going to move that plant but then decided not to. It's finally building up again but it's taken a few years. I wouldn't cut down to the ground unless you have nothing to lose.

On established roses, take out the oldest cane or two every two or three years, followed by a good hit of fertilizer. It helps motivate the plant to grow a new basal cane--at least it does here. An old cane that has just a bit of twiggy growth on it, with that twiggy growth not productive--not worth keeping.

Ha! You guys are giving me hope that a very very old rose I have may survive after I neglected it for too long.

It is a bush of Anna Olivier (tea, Ducher, 1872). It is my original bush of this rose - was planted, accd to family lore, in the 1920s. It is growing in its original spot, which is now in the middle of a thicket of large bushes, under a very tall privet tree. It has been growing there and booming happily 9 months of the year for the last 25 years. I have rooted cuttings of it, and have 2 large bushes of it now growing in other parts of the garden (which are both blooming at the moment). However, the place where the original one is growing is rather far into a wild area where I do not go very often.

Anyway, the other day I went to look at it and was guiltily sad to notice that it had died back about 50% (it had been 8 ft tall by about 12 feet across), because the bushes which surround it had grown into it. So, I cut back all of the large bushes so that none of them were closer than about 3 feet from it, cut off all of the dead wood, and weeded out the blanket of English ivy underneath it to about 4 feet away from the base in all directions. Fed it, mulched it with 4 inches of homemade compost, put on that weed seed stuff, and watered it in.

What made me think of it reading this post, is that on the side that had died back there was one large cane at the base (about 4 1/2 inches in diameter) that I thought was completely dead, and I sawed it off about 2 inches from the dirt. Low and behold, the next day I noticed that the stump was sprouting drops of water, as large live canes do if you cut them and then water. So, I have hopes that the base of that cane may still be alive, and maybe it will sprout new basils. It could sure use some on that side, as now all of the long canes with leaves are on the other side of the bush. Thanks for the info -

Jackie

Once other plants (or more growth of the same plant) shade out sections of the plant, it begins to shed it. If you catch it quickly enough, you can reverse the process, but if it's left too long, the plant "decides" it no longer requires that portion and draws all possible resources from it and abandons it. The sap flow is highest in warm temps, particularly when sun shines on the cut cane. If you can stop that "bleeding", new growth will sprout from that cane faster because of the increased sap pressure at its end. That is an issue I had with heavily flowing sap in the root stocks I budded this summer. I didn't want to use the asphalt pruning sealer and Elmer's Glue didn't work. It's water soluble and the high pressure sap flow dissolved it, pushing it off the cut and then continued "bleeding". What DID work was to drip cold melt candle wax on the cut when the temps were lower and no sun shone on the cane. In those conditions, there was no "bleeding", so the wax could cool on dry tissue, sealing it and stopping the "bleeding". That increased the sap pressure and caused the inserted buds (which, for all intents and purposes are the same as the growth buds at the end of your remaining cane) to push new growth very quickly. As long as the cane continues bleeding, losing sap, there is little sap pressure there to force new growth. And, we always thought sealing pruning cuts was primarily to prevent disease and borers! Nope! It's also to encourage the generation of new growth utilizing the water you've already used to maintain the plant. Kim

Thanks, Kim. I just ran out to look at it, and I really think the droplets I saw on the cut cane end yesterday were water, not sap. There are not droplets on it at all now, and no stickiness.

So, still hoping for the best.

Jackie

You're welcome, Jackie. If it is as over cast and chilly there now as it is here, you won't have much, if any, bleeding. Let the sun shine ON the cane and the air temp rise into the high seventies or above and the bleeding should start like a hose. That is what I have seen on every root stock I've budded to here once I've severed the top growth from above the inserted buds. "Pruned" cane ends work the same way, except for possibly the rate and quantity of flow which should be determined by the gauge of the cane and the genetics of the variety. Thicker canes flow more sap. IXL, Pink Clouds and Fortuniana flow much more sap than the modern rose seedlings I have pressed into use for later budding needs. The more vigorous a grower the plant is, the higher the sap flow rate it has as that is what drives growth. Kim

OK - at best the cut cane about which I am speaking gets only filtered sunlight, and as you said right now it is not getting any. WIth winter finally showing up here (they are predicting 3 storms with possible rain in the next week here), I am hoping that it will not bleed at all, and next Spring will put out new growth. I will keep an eye on it. Thanks so much for the explanation - I am so happy that it is apparently alive.

Jackie