Help! Roses have no growth?

7 years ago

last modified: 7 years ago

I'm hoping someone can help me figure out what is going on with my roses. Last year I bought 4 bare root David Austin roses that I planted in large containers and they did quite well that first year. I live in west Michigan, and this past year we had a pretty mild winter and so far the spring has been unusually hot (in the 80s by mid May). Earlier in the spring, I checked and pruned the rose bushes and the stems were green with lots of leaf buds. However, a few weeks later, the buds had died and the branches had started browning at the tips. So far, only one rose has actually grown leaves and the other three have zero to minimal growth. We didn't get a late frost that I know of and I would think with the weather we've had so far that my roses would be bursting with growth. The only other things I can think of is 1) I somehow killed them when I pruned them or 2) there is a large Black Walnut tree in the same yard. I'd really appreciate any advice you can give!

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Comments (4)

nippstress - zone 5 Nebraska
7 years ago
My guess is that the leaf buds that you had coming in on these canes initially were growing from the stored energy in the canes rather than healthy sustainable growth. I get that a lot in my zone 5 yard where roses will initially start to leaf out then die back fairly quickly as they run through the stored energy in the canes and don't really have enough healthy cane to continue. The same can happen with new growth from the ground that then fades further into the season.That's why you can't just do one spring pruning and call it good, but need to periodically check the canes on roses well into the season.

Basically, it looks like you have winter killed canes and you need to prune off anything that looks brown or black. In the top two photos, that would mean taking out essentially all of the visible canes except what is supporting the new growth. In the last photo, you'd be pruning out the dark ends of most of those canes leaving about half the cane that still looks green. Even though the last one hasn't leafed out yet it looks like the canes are the happiest.

The good news is that roses can come back pretty well from this kind of pruning each year if necessary. Potted roses are essentially as much as a zone less hardy than the same roses in the ground, because there's more cold air circulating around their soil. For my zone 5, Austins in the ground can usually survive and sometimes have some surviving cane, but in a pot they're likely to always be pruned to the ground.

Incidentally, I'd also put some kind of mulching material on top of that soil in the pots to retain some moisture. I'm not a big pot person, but as the weather heats up it'll help you not have to water them as often if they have a little leaf mulch or wood chip mulch around the rose. Just keep the mulch away from the base of the canes, particularly in a pot.

Hope this helps

Cynthia
hilberry87
Original Author
7 years ago
That information was super helpful Cynthia! Thanks for taking the time to help a newbie out!
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nippstress - zone 5 Nebraska
7 years ago
Glad to help - now we'll want to see photos when your roses bloom. Just be patient with them for another year or so. They're still building good root systems this year. If you get healthy canes and leaves this year, that's a good thing.

Cynthia
seil zone 6b MI
7 years ago
Hilberry, this often happens in Michigan. In the early spring the canes look green and you think they've done really well over winter but then as the spring progresses they start to die back. It just happens that way. I have a theory that in the fall they freeze quickly with the green color on them and stay that way all winter then as they thaw they begin to turn brown. Just prune them back as Cynthia said and wait for new growth to come.

Help! Roses have no growth?

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nippstress - zone 5 Nebraska

hilberry87
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Help! Roses have no growth?

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nippstress - zone 5 Nebraska

hilberry87Original Author

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hilberry87
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