I am brand-new to growing roses, and put a Dream come True rose bush in our front garden a year ago at the commencement of a great gardening experiment gone haywire (i.e., I way over-planted, so during the summer everything grew into a densely tangled, impenetrable jungle such that I couldnÂt even harvest the veggies!). Anyway, the poor little rose bush got off to a very rough start, having been instantly attacked by some sort of fungus, which I cut off and disposed of the diseased leaves and helped her get over it, and then ransacked by aphids, for which I entreated the ladybugs to call all their friends and have a ladybug picnic (and they obliged!), only to next get totally buried under a mass of zucchinis, tomatillos and heirloom tomatoes. Nevertheless, she soldiered on and one side grew quite tall and bloomed beautifully, although the other side hardly grew at all, resulting in a strange shape rather like a checkmark.

My questions:

Should I prune back the long side to balance the shape, and if so, when? Even though spring wonÂt have officially sprung until tomorrow, weÂve had an exceptionally mild winter this year in L.A., and the spring growth is well underway with a couple fat bunds ready to open any minute now (on the short side, but plenty of tiny buds appearing on the long side).

Also, what should I be feeding this rose, if anything at all? I have a totally organic garden that I have been feeding species-appropriate organic food to the veggies and fruit, but nothing in particular to the flowers, as IÂm sure they have been benefiting from what I have been giving to the other plants. For the rose, I did give it some nice organic coffee grounds not long after I first put it in, and we fed it a fish last summer that it seemed to be delighted with (when my husband filleted a saba [not sure of the English name  Spanish mackerel, perhaps?] to throw on the grill, I took the head, bones and whatever meat was left clinging to them, dug a shallow hole next to the rose, put the fish in and covered it with a brick so the neighborhood cats wouldnÂt come dig it up and eat it like they did with the cooked fish skeleton I tried to feed it before that).

I have put a link to photos of the rose bush in questions, although please bear with me  IÂm not a skillful Flickr user  so if the pix of the raspberries (who suffered a similar beginning as the rose last spring) come up first, thereÂs only five, so just flick through them to get to the rose pictures.

Thanks very much,

Brenda K in L.A.

Here is a link that might be useful: My lopsided Dream Come True rose