Dr. Malcolm Manners prunes his Chinas back quite a bit - at least by half - at Florida Southern College. Last year, he coached me through taking my Comtesse du Cayla from a tangled mess about eight feet wide and seven feet tall to about 3 1/2 ft, leaving nothing but a structure, and told me I could have gone lower. The rose's sap ran for days and it didn't do anything while everything else was leafing out, but ultimately looked the best that it had in years. Interestingly enough, the flowers always scorched after a few hours in the intense Sacramento sun, but they held up much better. I think it was easier for water to get to them by not having to force its way along those long, thin canes. Teas, I think, are a tougher prospect, but he prunes them decisively too. We occasionally have an unknown "volunteer" whack back a Tea in the cemetery, to our great dismay, and they recover. Some Teas, like Maman Cochet, send out right-angled canes when cut and so they are vexing to keep in a graceful shape when you prune them. I've become convinced that most Teas don't have a graceful shape if you look at them closely, but the tangled, awkward mass of internal canes doesn'tt matter much if the outside is leafy and blooming. One thing that Cass taught me is that cutting off a China's lower cane and leaving other canes long and leafy will simply cause that cane to die back or produce very wimpy growth - the plant just shifts its energy into the canes that are already growing. That's why I took CdC down all the way. I think that you can convince the roses to grow upright once again by how you prune, removing some of the lower growth, and doing some "editing" as new growth appears, cutting off horizontal stuff and leaving the canes growing upright. An alternative, though, is to take a rose to a structured shape and let it regenerate. Another alternative is to prop a tripod in the middle and tie up some of the canes into the shape that you are seeking - I've used rebar for that purpose. As Kim said, it's good to experiment. I have found that split canes on Teas often continue to crank out growth and bloom as though nothing happened. Sometimes the cliche "this hurts me more than it hurts you" applies to roses - we think that they need some attention but they are just fine, and it's only our aesthetic judgement that is says there is a problem. Florida's climate and conditions (including the fact that Malcolm's roses are on fortuneana and mine are bare root) are different from Sacramento, and different yet from Italy, but I think that you get enough heat, Melissa, for your roses to make a comeback. Anita

If it's any help, nothing to be embarrassed about. We don't all have a kid in the house to show us these things:) I'm bad enough with the camera I bought that I haven't even reinstalled the software for it since buying a new computer in Fall - you don't see photos coming from me. Maybe the privacy option went the way of actual birth dates, or is still tied into the change that puts all the strange symbols when someone tries to list measurements or temperatures. There are some very savvy people on Computer Help forum but this isn't an actual computer problem as opposed to GW glitch I think.

Good god, spatz, do you need advice?. I think you need a chainsaw. Have you seen peter Cundall doin' his stuff on the ABC?. He's as ruthless as you. Like Finbar says, there are only a couple of types which need light pruning. If you look at commercial orchards, they cut to size. All their trees are cut to grow for the harvester. doesn't do em any harm.

You did check how big they can get? This particular species is a bit famous here for having been sold as a "small" eucalypt in the seventies, then proving to be nothing of the sort, to the chagrin of those who planted them in little gardens. All Eucalypts can be pruned, but this often results in a weak plant which drops branches. Coppicing is a better bet, as the resulting multi-stemmed tree is stronger, and will never get so big. For this you'd cut about 8 inches above the ground. Gumtrees have a concentration of epicormic buds in the outer sapwood of their lower trunks (remnants of the lignotuber they had in infancy). They put up heaps of shoots from these buds if the tree is damaged by fire or chopped off. A few win out and the result can be a very pretty plant with 3 - 8 (or so) trunks. You can do this a number of times in a tree's life, and this tree probably has the potential to live for several hundred years (more if coppiced, as this prolongs tree life). However, the root will get big, so this is not a plant to put within, say, 3 metres of the foundations of a house, or structures like retaining walls or concrete paths. Some kinds of Eucalypts (notably the mallees) never lose the lignotuber, so naturally have this multi-trunked habit. I doubt if your tree would transplant well. They're fast-growing things, though. You could just rip it out, if it's poorly placed, and plant another in a better position. Trish