Hi Jan,

I have lived in CQ though I live near the coast now and have grown roses in both heavy clay and sand. I have had a few disappointments like you and learnt from my mistakes. I have never been very interested in the HT's though some are very beautiful. I have found that colour can vary in the heat eg I have grown Lady Hillingdon and it is described as apricot but up here it is more creamy with a soft apricot centre - still beautiful but not as described. I have also discovered that scent is very elusive when it is hot. You have to wait for winter or go out very early on a milder morning to capture any fragrance a rose might have. Crimson Glory and Just Joey are the only two HT's I have grown and picked to enjoy the scent every day.
Other roses have petals that last only a day and drop in the heat. This applies to many of the David Austins. I love my Heritage and Mary Rose but it is Graham Thomas that thrives in the heat and is always covered in blooms that look beautiful for days on end.
I now prefer to grow the noisettes and teas which are trouble free and always in bloom. The china rose Mutablis is a winner too. Roses can mean hard work in our climate and you need to be aware that growth habits can be different to those described in a rose book. My Graham Thomas is so vigorous and the canes so thick and thorny it could take over a shed !
Another suggestion if I may - I let my roses go into dormancy during the summer. So I get a spring/early summer flowering and then stop feeding until early March. Come autumn the roses start another flowering period that can last right through the winter if I keep feeding.

Other rose growers here will have heaps more suggestions.
Hope that helps and you end up with a lovely rose garden.

Hi Frannyfrip
Thanks for your post.
How do you let roses go into dormacy can you give me some hints please
Jan

Well Jan this is just me. I'm no expert. Have you noticed how many rose growers here in Qld prune their roses quite severly as recommended by southern rose growing experts. Up here we don't get a proper winter - just a few cold spells. But what is the point is growing sticks in the garden all winter when they can be covered in blooms? Roses are supposed to need a period of dormancy but up here you can actually keep them in bloom all year by keeping the fertilizer up to them. Trouble is they wear themselves out with all this constant blooming. Now this might not apply to all roses. I haven't grown enough of them to make a postive assertion of this fact. But I have read this is so in various gardening magazines. This struck me mainly because I hate gardening through the summer and latched on to the idea immediately !! Who wants to be out checking for mildew and mites and picking blooms for the vase that immediately go into a sulk and drop their petals on a hot summer's day.
I decided long ago that the best way out of that was to let them go into dormancy through the summer and enjoy their flowering thfough autumn and winter if I could. All it requires is for you to stop feeding once it gets hot. You will notice that after a flowering period it is at least 6 weeks or so before they bloom again. YOu need to fertilize after they bloom to get them to flower unless you have really fertile soil I suppose. Don't know. I have had to work at it by composting and mulching and have to fertilize.
Anyway that's all you have to do basically - stop fertilizing. I do water enough to keep the foliage in good health. This keeps the sap flowing and prevents dieback.
This works for me. I do envy those that grow lots of roses through summer but I would rather find something else to do.
Don't know whether this will help but I have found that researching a subject can save a lot of time and money. YOu will find lots of help on the net. Go for it.

Thanks for this topic Jan.

Thanks Frannyfrip for your input. I find that the "Southerners" are a wonderful help in most occasions but up here it is so different and, though they have the hot times, they are not for such long, long periods.

I only planted my first lot of roses last rose buying season and they were growing and flowering very well till we got that month of 100 deg temps,along with all the dry winds, they stopped flowering but I did keep the water up to them and just trimmed them back a bit, now they are all sending out lovely new shoots and buds .
So to reward them I gave them a big feed of Organic Life.

Marion, in CQ too

Very Interesting..... Lozza said in one of the other threads about Roses "" In constantly hot weather, dormancy can be induced by withholding water from the plants. They will become dormant, not dead, just unproductive, until awakened by drenching rain."" ...Lozza would know these things Now never having done this before I thought I may try it next Summer but exactly just how much water do we with hold as its no good depending on natural rainfall as sometimes it does not rain for eight weeks or more, also if I stopped watering mine the soil will go hard like concrete then the water would just run off down to the hardwood edges which would have shrunk being so dry and what a waste.

Mine have been flowering all Mid Winter, Spring and Summer and I was getting heaps of buds all over Summer, till the caterpillars came by the hundreds and we could not keep up with pulling them off by hand, then four weeks ago I hard pruned all my 39 plants, climbers, carpet roses, ramblers, Standards, Mini's and bush roses to get rid of these caterpillars. It did not work and two weeks ago they started again with the leaf curling cocoons on the new growth so I sprayed them that worked and now I have heaps of buds coming on. My two Bonica Patio Roses were in such a bad way that last Saturday I dug them up but because they each have a hardwood stake in them of course all the soil fell off them anyway I put them in a different bed and there is new growth there already after only one week.. thats Qld weather for you, I also fed my others but not Organic this time as I got tired of adding the tsp of K to it as in Potassium Sulphate and they were lacking something so now I give them 10 grams of Nitrophoska Blue Special at six week intervals so I will see how this food goes if I dont see a improvement then I will go back to Organic food.. So if I have to do this dormancy thing next Summer just to keep those Caterpillar's away I will do it. I just need to know the right amount to water or do I just water when they start to go limp, which sounds like what FF is doing . Cheers..MM.

There's not much doubt that the further north you go, the more difficult it is to grow roses. If you live on the Atherton Tablelands like Judy, or in the Glasshouse Mountains like so many of our customers, you can have more success. Down South, we notice more changes in climate, and it is obvious that Spring and Autumn are the periods of optimum flower production. October/November, and April/May, the grass goes berserk, and so do our roses. As the heat builds up, the grass ceases to grow and dies off. The roses also say "It's too damned hot", and begin to sulk also. I'm talking about field-grown roses. Watering is reserved for the young crops that must be kept growing. This is our imposed dormancy, January/February and March. As the weather cools, the roses show an interest in living, and trimming off unproductive wood, with judicious watering, encourages the plants into full Autumn bloom.

Up North you have a choice to make. Keep tending your roses during the oppressive heat, exhausting them for Autumn (sometime you will have to trim them), or get another life for 3 months and prepare for a great crop in Winter. The problem is where you live, and as I suggest, the further North you go, the worse it will become. I well remember in Southern England (only 2 flushes a year), the great quality of the blooms. Cooler climate and constant moisture makes for great quality roses. Maybe not so many though.

Sounds like that is the way to go Lozza Thanks, I reckon my poor roses need a rest and thats a better idea for them to do it at that time of the year then in the Winter when they can be blooming like crazy..But when do we do that big prune or should we just be pruning a little all the time, I pick so many of my roses for in the house and the neighbours so they are getting a light prune all the time I guess you would say, and some of the blooms that dont get cut for that purpose instead of deadheading I cut them down to where I would have cut them for a vase, is that wrong maybe I am pruning too much and that is making them want to grow even more.....Cheers...MM.

I have never found hard pruning to be necessary in our hot climate. It probably weakens your roses because they are supposed to be dormant when you do it. Correct me if I am wrong Lozza but I don't know that a rose plant ever goes into proper dormancy in the sub-tropics. Should hard pruning be recommended for our climate in that case Lozza? I don't mean places like Toowoomba and the Darling Downs where there's a proper winter with frosts and so on.
All I have even done in regards to pruning is what MM does, a light prune when necessary. I cut out any old canes after flowering or when the weather is milder. I also deadhead and when I pick the roses I cut the stems as long as possible. Naturally I remove diseased wood back to healthy green growth and I try not to leave stubs. I always spray with diluted milk afterwards because our humidity can bring on problems with fungal disease.
I thought it worthwhile learning how to prune and why I prune and to prune only when I have do and unless my roses become waterlogged after heavy and prolonged rain or get dieback from drought, have been able to grow my roses as successfully as any of my neighbours without all the winter pruning dramas.

Another point - I don't abandon my roses completely through the summer. I am very diligent about inspecting foliage. It tells me how the plant is going and what it needs me to do for it. That's enough work for me, especially when you have to battle the elements like a farmer does !

I would welcome Lozza's input on this.
Fran

Getting down to specifics in your climate is out of bounds for me. For fear of repeating myself, talk to the expert rose growers at the Rose Society of Queenslamd. Who better to help with your questions?

Try something stupid, like I do.
Cut them. Don't let them open buds and then burn in sun, discolour and evetually disintegrate in myriad of petals.
As you see bud opening, cut it and put in vase.
Early spring and autumn blooms are those to stay and enjoy in the garden. Everything in between doesn't live except in a vase.
For best roses, we should relocate (Tasmania is great) or somewhere around 45th parallel up north.
- Tom