Where would you prune this Rose Bush
David Ilzhoefer
8 years ago
Hello:
I recently bought a home in Dallas, TX and it has a few rose bushes in the back.
I need some advice as to where should I prune this bush.
There is a lot of dead wood on it, but I have no clue what kind of rose bush this is.
Any help is appreciated.
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not sure how to prune this rose bush (see photo)
Comments (8)I'm not sure what zone NYC is (maybe zone 7?) but I think it is too early to prune yet. A very general basic rule of thumb is to start pruning when the forsythias bloom in your area. Usually that means that temperatures are right for the roses to start growing and it's time to prune. I tried to do the arrows picture but it was very hard to tell from your photos what was good and what wasn't so here is my Basic Pruning Primer Take off any dead wood. Any cane that is black or very dark brown is probably dead wood. Canes that are green but have a very black or dark brown streak running down the side are probably going to die soon so take them off to below the streak. However, as some canes age they can get a darker brown barky look to them and still be living wood. You can tell dead wood by looking at the center part of the cane called the pith. Start at the tip of any cane and cut off a piece about 2 inches long. Look at the center. If it is a greenish white or cream the cane is alive. If it is brown or a dark tan it is dead wood. You can easily tell the difference. The whiter center will look moist and the dark center will be dry looking. Keep cutting down the cane in small pieces until you reach cane that has a clear whitish moist center. The cane from that point down should be healthy. Once you've removed all the dead wood you can prune for shape and size if you wish. It's a good idea to take out one of any canes that cross or rub each other. Rubbing will cause damage and you could lose both canes so take one out. Take out any spindly canes with a diameter of less than a pencil. You have a lot of that spindly.twiggy side growth on your bush. Also take out any canes that grow directly into the center of the bush. You want to open up the center for good air flow. That allows the center to get more light and to dry quicker to help prevent fungal diseases. Since your bush doesn't appear to be very large you may want to hold off on thinning it too much right away though. I am not at all familiar with the method that Campanula described for getting it to put out a new cane at the bottom (basal growth) but Camp knows her stuff so I'm sure it's good advise. I was going to suggest that if possible you repot it deeper to encourage more growth. You can also then straighten it up in the pot some so you don't have to stake and tie it like that. My worry is that eventually that string is going to strangle the rose and kill it. It's wrapped very tightly around that one main cane. If it girdles the bark completely everything from there up will die. Most of all don't be afraid to make mistakes. For the most part you can't really kill a rose by pruning it. Usually it just grows back even better. And for another thing, we've all made mistakes and still do sometimes when pruning a rose. I experience that sick feeling of "OOPS, I shouldn't have cut that" usually at least once every pruning season, lol! Mistakes are how we learn sometimes and, like I said, roses are very forgiving. I know there are several rose societies in NY and I'm sure if you contact one of them they would be very happy to help you out. Or you can go on the American Rose Society web site and find a consulting rosarian for your area that you can contact. When I did that for my area the guy came right over to my house to help me and we've been good friends ever since! Rose people are really nice and love to share and talk roses with anyone interested, lol! Here is a link that might be useful: The American Rose Society...See Morepruning giant rose bush
Comments (16)Does it get more sun a different time of day? It might be growing to get light and will want to do that again. And it looks like it is fighting with the ivy at the bottom, that might take away some of the water/fertilizer for the plant. Are those white flowers tinted pink? Kind of looks like Cecil Brunner. If it was my bush and it got some more light, I would be tempted to run wire from one metal post to the next on either side at a couple of heights and start training her horizontally to cover the fence. I would leave the last canes near the top of the fence since she already likes it there. But if it is a Cecil or Lady Banks, I would probably wait until after it blooms in the spring....See Morewhen do you prune your rose bushes.
Comments (10)The latest research shows that the best time to prune roses in California is during the summer growing season. Contrary to conventional wisdom and popular belief. Roses should be pruned as you would any flowering shrub. After each flush of bloom, prune out the spent flowering canes and skinny canes back to where they're larger than a finger. If you do this after each flush of bloom, you won't have a bunch of scraggly canes that need serious doctoring come winter. And we don't prune back roses, at any time, to short nubbins. That's a practice that evolved back east and in the midwest where winter cold and snows forced rose gardeners to cut their roses back hard so that they could cover them with piles of mulch and burlap and god-knows-what-all-else. We don't need to do that. Again, prune roses just back to good finger-size canes, usually pruning roses no more than 1/3 to 1/2 depending on their vigor. We should have BIG rose BUSHES, just as we have big BUSHES. Also, the fact is that in most of California, our roses don't actually go fully dormant. We read about this in gardening magazines every year -- "ways to make your roses go dormant" (cut off water, fertilizer, leave the hips on, etc.). If you know about the genetics of modern roses, you know that one of the primary parents is Rosa chinensis. And R. chinensis is a subtropical to tropical species that is pretty much evergreen in the wild. But there's a reality here: you've asked your question because you probably haven't done your summer pruning as noted above and you're ready to go in and do some winter "dormant" pruning of all that scraggliness. If you can't find a good calendar for pruning for your area (it varies), simply watch your rose bushes. As soon as you see even the slightest bit of bud swelling and/or new growth, have at it. Just be careful. Joe...See MoreDouble-knock out rose bushes too late to prune?
Comments (5)Denise, Landscape roses like Knockout Roses are very vigorous growers, so you prune them to give yourself some control over them. Otherwise they can get amazingly big and start looking kind of wild. The "rules" for pruning them are not necessarily the same as they are for some other roses like hybrid teas because they are landscape shrub roses. Some people don't prune them their first year because they want to get a good idea of how the natural shape of the Knockout rose is going to progress. Some folks prune them back only every other year because they want them to be huge monsters but know they have to maintain some sort of order and control. You just have to figure out what works for you and the space you have as well as the vigor of the particular Knockout you have. Some Knockout types get larger than others and some grow more vigrously. When you prune in late winter to early spring, you are doing so in order to control the shape and size of the bush, and to keep new growth coming out near the bottom of the plant. Remember that I mentioned my mom quit pruning her roses and the base of the plants became very ugly. Well, that "ugly" is what you want to avoid. If you don't prune, then the new growth comes out higher and higher every year and the bottom of the plant looks awful. I haven't grown Knockouts, but they probably should be pruned back to the 5, 6 or 7 largest canes each spring--removing what you need to in order to maintain the shape you like and that fits in with your landscape. You always remove the oldest and woodiest canes, because as they get older they just get woodier and woodier and don't look that great. Because Knockout Roses can be very vigorous growers if planted in ideal conditions, they sometimes need "corrective" pruning in the middle of the growing season when they send out an occasional limb that just shoots out from nothing to 2 or 3 feet almost overnight and is growing in the "wrong" direction, like directly into the wall of the house or a pathway or whatever. I don't think you have to deadhead Knockout blooms though, as they are self-cleaning. A friend of mine describes the more vigorous Knockouts as taking on the appearance of a drunken spider if left too long without corrective pruning, with long legs sticking out this way and that way, and she's not the only person I've heard describe them that way. I have a couple of David Austin English Roses that get that same "drunken spider" look in the middle of the summer, especially after a big rainy spell. They just send out canes out of nowhere that go this way and that way. I prune them out as needed and don't seal the cuts. They heal over just fine on their own. I googled and found you info on "Pruning Knockout Roses" and linked it below. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Pruning Knockout Roses...See More
jacqueline9CA
8 years agoKen (N.E.GA.mts) 7a/b
8 years agoDavid Ilzhoefer
8 years agoHello:
Well the one bush is producing some flowers. Still do not know what kind, but nice blood red color.
The other picture shows some kind of disease.
If you have advice on what the disease is and how to treat it, please let me know.
Thank you,David
summersrhythm_z6a
8 years ago
cadiarose
8 years agojacqueline9CA
8 years agoDavid Ilzhoefer
8 years agoHi:
Thanks for all of the help and advice. Again this is my first spring in the home, so I am curious to know what roses I have and the best way to prune, etc...
Here is my rose bush. Maybe Don Juan.
Nice sucker I need to probably cut.
Here is the only other rose bush that I have.
It has black spot, clearly that I need to tend to.
All advice is appreciated.
jacqueline9CA
8 years agoDavid Ilzhoefer
8 years agojacqueline9CA
8 years agoDavid Ilzhoefer
8 years agoOk I tied them gently to the fence and deadheaded a few old buds. Have more buds developing.
Sheila z8a Rogue Valley OR
8 years agoDavid Ilzhoefer
8 years agoSheila z8a Rogue Valley OR
7 years agolast modified: 7 years ago
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