I don't know what roses these are but they look old to me. Perhaps you will get more answers in the Antique Rose forum.

Thanks so much! I may try that.

Couldn't someone give me general advice without knowing exactly what kind these are?

Hi Andy, For the huge climbing pink rose, I'd link the posts near the rose with wires (4 or 5 wires, 30cm or 40cm between wires) , attach the rose canes to the wires as horizontal as possible, you can turn it into a rose covered magic wall. :-) For the red one which is not that big, root more cuttings and plant the cutting in 2 or 3 rolls. So you will have a beautiful red rose garden. The more the better, it looks like you have a lot of room there for 100 of them.,,,,,, and if you could root more the pink climbing rose, plant the rooted cuttings in a roll, put in more posts, link them with wires, you'd have a long rose wall, that would make your hospital to look like a rose garden and make the treatment less painful. :-) They might need deadheading to help them to repeat more. Your next mission is rooting more roses, and plant one climbing rose next to each post, those bare posts are screaming for roses. :-)

http://paulzimmermanroses.com/gardening/training-roses/training-climbing-roses-on-a-trellis/

I've been thinking on this one but keep in mind that I live in the frozen north. Most of what I grow is frozen too the ground each winter. There for in spring I check for live cane and cut to that point.

I had typed out some basics but decided this would be better. So I googled pruning roses in Australia and not much came up. One helpful site for understanding the basics. Try too search for Paul Zimmerman pruning roses. He has excellent pics and clear understandable language. There are several he has done available to see. He doses not garden in an environment like yours thou. but he is an expert rosarian. Then I found some helpful advice by searching. Rose pruning in south Florida which is an environment like yours. I sincerely hope these are helpful.

For what it's worth rose number one looks as though she might be a climbing rose. Number two appears to be a floribunda. I just looked up a rose last week that very much looked like rose 2 and the flowers hung like that. I'll try too find it again if I'm successful I come back and share the name. In the mean time best of luck.

Summer what a coincidence we cross posted and both thought of Paul Zimmerman.

Oh I forgot too mention the roses appear to be modern to me. Paul Zimmerman also has a book Everyday Roses and if I had to guess it would be quite informative.

Lol, we were thinking about the same thing. I am going to look for that book-Everyday Roses.

Another idea, may be the mission station can purchase more tall climbing roses with good repeats, when they are tall and big, you can also link the posts on top with wires, that would make the path way so dramatic, just like the photos in these links:

http://gardeningroses.org/Tips-For-Growing-Climbing-Roses.html

http://www.countryfarm-lifestyles.com/pruning-roses.html#.VsCigPkrK00

Thanks you both!

Summer, you sound like the right person to have around when designing a garden. Sadly, I'm not really free to do as much with the landscape design on the station. For one thing, the pink rose is growing between two buildings that are marked for demolition. I trust that I'll be around to transplant it when the time comes. In the meanwhile, I'm just hoping to get it healthy and producing more flowers so it will be ready. And I already have some cuttings from that one going at my house, so I can spread the beauty around the station.

And for the red one, I might be able to slip some more like it into that bed. It's pretty full, but nothing else there is special, so I'd probably get away with it.

The hospital is facing a $.8 million deficit, so buying roses (even if they were available) probably won't happen this year!

And thank you both for the tip and the links to Paul Zimmerman. I'll look to him for advice on the pruning, feeding, etc.

By the way, I went ahead and did some pruning yesterday (Sunday) afternoon. I knew I wouldn't have another chance for a while, so I chopped enthusiastically (but cautiously), based on what I had learned so far. I'm hoping that I won't live to regret my brash actions! I'll try to post a follow-up in a few weeks (?months?) when I see the results!

The rose is a tough shrub and even if you should prune it wrongly. It will regrow and you'll have many chances too prune it again. I did forget to mention fertilizer.

There are some less expensive ways to give the roses nutrition. One way to add extra nitrogen is with grass clippings. Just be sure that the grass was not treated with any type of weed killer. Spread in thin layers around the rose not touching the canes thou. Each rose could get a little top dressing of a bagged manure or nutritious soil. Even like 1/4 a bag per rose would be helpful. Would you have a spot to make a little compost pile. The roses look like they may only need a little food. Maybe you could search for inexpensive options to provide nutrients. Shredded leaves and grass clippings do provide great nutrients if you can find a way to keep leaves from blowing away. You'll be surprised at what can help. Chopped left over vegetables, fruits or banana peels. If placed in a blender with a little water no one would even see it on the ground. Good luck to you.

Oh and remember not to place amendments up against rose canes. The feeder roots extend out from rose quite a ways.

You're welcome. :-) I agree with everything Patty mentioned, plus egg shells, eggs are good for humans, shells is good for roses. I have been saving egg shells all winter...... :-) I think the pink climber would repeat more if you do deadheading. Please post some photos later, hope to see more blooms. :-)

Have a good day guys. Off today, going to Erie PA for some bargain hunting, 2 hrs driving to get there without speeding. :-)

Summers advice is great as well. Sorry should have mentioned that. Hope you find lots of goodies Summer. Sounds like fun.

I garden in a much cooler climate than Andy's but much warmer than Patty and Summer's.
I think the roses pictured are probably Chinas , maybe a mix of Chinas with teas. That means that the info on pruning modern roses (Hybrid Teas) doesn't apply to them, because of the differences in how the roses put out blooms. So much that Andy writes about the growth habit is what comes naturally for Chinas and Teas. Even the noddy heads are typical of some tea roses.

You have some good advice about finding fertilizers. Forget finding a blender or electricity, instead just dig banana peels into the soil. Likewise hand crush egg shells. If you have access to bones that are left after making soups, etc., crushed up bones are also a well accepted soil additive. Do Nitrogen fixing ground covers survive for you? (Legumes, clovers....)

Going back to the 1800s in the southern US, poudrette was a major soil additive. Yep, human poo, dressed with ashes left over from burning wood will give soil additional needed additives.

Your roses have survived on the top of a hill, and that fits what chinas and to a lesser extent teas do well. That is a tolerance of occassional dry conditions.

What may be exciting is figuring out when the roses arrived and from where.

There's a book by Hazel Le Rougetel A Heritage of Roses that is a good introduction to the movement of roses out of China. Used copies are very copetitively priced.

If you have enough bandwidth, you might want to download some of the Rose Books from the 1800s, and read about what they wrote about China Roses, also called Bengal Roses, as well as teas.

And I have to ask if any of your roses are singles and yellow as some of the lost roses might have landed in your part of the world.

Ann

Anne is correct if these are indeed chinas or teas. These are a whole different class of rose from what I'm able too grow. This was all part of what i started too type out but my knowledge in this are is so nonexistent that I gave up. I don't think that you should even prune these types.

I only mentioned the blender as I believe these were in a public spot were people might complain. If that is not a problem no mixing necessary.

I had wondered about the nodding flowers. There are many on line sites that you can find for information on how to best grow chinas and teas. I'm so happy someone else finally saw this post to give correct information.

We have a blender. It's electric, and we have electricity for it most of the time! I'd probably need to use it when my wife isn't around! :) "Honey, do you mind if I use the blender to grind up some garbage?" Not sure if that would fly. I do think blended would be nicer.

We routinely throw our organic waste (all but human! :) ) in a pit. I could probably figure out a way to dig up the bottom of the pit, which I'm sure has composted by now. I know that commercial fertilizers are available, as there are coffee plantations all around us here. I wouldn't think that the needs of roses are too radically different than coffee, which is also a flowering shrub. (I'll take the beverage made with the seeds of the coffee plant over rose hip tea anytime!)

So maybe I should have pruned more conservatively or even not at all. We'll see what comes of this.

Thanks again, all. Maybe later today or tomorrow I'll post some of the "after pruning" photos, and photos of one more bush that I'm working on.

By the way, I'd think that all of the roses here were originally imported from Australia, but maybe a few from the US, New Zealand, and maybe Indonesia (though there is very little traffic between PNG and Ind, despite their sharing a land border). Some could have come from Europe many years ago. Prior to 1918, the northeastern part of what is now PNG was a German colony. In the recent past, rules on the import of plant products weren't enforced very well. Still aren't, really. It's very to bring seeds in. I have no idea what would happen if someone were to ship a bare-root plant via DHL or FedEx. Might be interesting to find out!

One of the other doctors here is an avid vegetable gardener, and I found out today that he buys 40 kg bags of fertilizer, and he's willing to let some go to the roses! It's 2-3-2, as he recalls.

Here's the third bush before and after:

This also was in a limited part of the plant. I'm talking about the spots on the leaves. The vine I'll just weed out.

Summer, I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you think this one should be trained on the wall! I think so, too. I believe that this wall is going to be preserved in the new construction that is planned, so it will probably be possible to do that. How do you suggest I do it?

That's a nice stone wall! :-) Don't want to get you in trouble, can you use long nails and wires on the wall? It would look really beautiful to have that climber blooming on the stone wall......

Hit the nails under the moonlight? :-) Just joking.

On your third photo down that is rose scale. Do a search and you'll find how too best control it.

Thanks, all. I'll study up on rose scale, I'll watch bush #3 to see how it does just growing against the wall, and consider putting up some wires for it.

And thanks for the tip on the potential ID of this rose. If it is Ping Dong Yue Ji, I can't imagine how it got here from either Mainland China or from Taiwan. I know that the first doctor and the then-mission director made a buying trip to Tokyo and Hong Kong when the hospital was first builtin 1967. Could it be that they brought one or more rose bushes back? I know that the first doctor's wife was quite unhappy here, and maybe he thought roses would help. It's planted near the house that they lived in, but not in their garden, but near what was the main entrance to the hospital in those days. I am in touch with the grown children of several of the early missionaries (they're all about my age) and a few of the older retired folks. I'll ask some of them.

When is the best time to prune in a climate where the roses don't have a dormant time?

After the blooms are done blooming.

Hi Andy. Those are China class roses, a class quite common in Cairns and the Atherton table lands of farnorth Queensland. I think the pink is Spray Cecile Brunner. China roses prefer to be left to thier own devices and recover slowly from major pruning. Cutting out the dead bits is all they need. I don't even touch mine.

They should be treated like thier close cousins, the true tea roses.

http://rosefog.us/PrunedRoses/PrunedRoses.htm

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/1628335/white-pearl-in-the-red-dragons-mouth?n=6

This might be an option for giving extra nutrition

http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s4488341.htm