Love to know what the tree feed was summers !!

How about some alfalfa tea / fish emulsion? I get lots of basal breaks from it . Supplies only about 20$ if you have an old bucket with lid or get a trash can from Walmart for 10 more . My quicksilver put up 3 new canes already 3 ft tall ! Beverly and savanna grew more too.

I know from your posts that you spend a lot of time and attention on your roses. This is a dilemma we all face. And most of us have pot ghettos or nursing beds where we put roses we have removed hoping they will return to their former glory. Sometimes the task is easier when we have no more room and that newest rose we just had to have comes along and we jerk the weakest out. As I get older I have less and less tolerance for weak spindly poor producing roses. Particularly those down to one cane, one flower a season despite good care. Long ago on this forum someone once told me - 'Life is too short for crappy roses'. Amen to that!

Lily, I will take a pic of the tree feed next time I am there.

I had problems with Royal Amethyst for 3 years. An occasional great bloom. I dug it up and threw it into the burn pile.

My JFK is on fortuniana root stock. It's a horse and a monster. Root stock makes all the difference with this rose.

My Moonstones are on Fortuniana also. It does take a full 3 yrs for it to shine.

Try Pink Peace on fortuniana. I've seen it. Huge bush covered with blooms.

Ken, I don't think we can grow roses on Fortuniana in the colder zone though.

Sara-Ann, Love Song is the only rose I grow on your list. It does quite well, but is cold sensitive, so in early December, you could mound up some compost, topped with leaves to make sure there is little die back on Love Song. I feed my roses a lot in late winter and early spring, and Love Song likes this. All roses get the same stuff, which can vary from year to year: compost, manure, granular fertilizer for acid loving plants (our soil is alkaline); and one of the Tones. This is spread out over a couple of months. Once I get busy as the season wears on, they aren't fed much, so depending on the weather, the roses get fed really early. Maybe this kind of feeding regimen would help your slackers. I swear by a compost called Nu Life. It may be available only in this region, but you might check. You could try googling it, too. Diane

Sara-Ann, my Buxom Beauty does the same thing x 2. I made a mental note to SP them if they get wimpy. Lo and behold this spring they look decent. Still I don’t think it has the ability to perform like Beverly or some others, not in the genes or maybe my climate. Mid March thru April was hard on my roses and I lost 2 Blac Magic’s. However Buxom Beauty doesn’t look bad. I will continue to watch it. Deja Blu had its best summer last year when the late fall before I almost SP’d it.

JFK was the only rose that I cheered when Dr. Huey suckered, I never recommend it here.

If they aren't performing, and you want new roses, then shovel prune and carry on. It isn't worth the time. They could just be bad plants, which happens.

Thank you everyone I appreciate the advice. Sure appreciate the suggestions for Love Song Diane, makes a lot of sense to me. Love Song is tender, but it is a good rose. Ken, I got both Moonstone and Pink Peace on Fortuniana this year, anxious to see how they do. Kentucky, I have a love-hate relationship with Buxom Beauty, sometimes the color of the blooms is too much for me, but then it can produce some beauties too, but the bush hasn’t been vigorous, but since it did come back I want to give it another chance, guess I’m strange that way. Diane, I think JFK would be the easiest one for me to part with, even though at times it has been prolific, in the six seasons I’ve had it, I could count on one hand the blooms that have been decent!

Thanks again everyone.

HI Sara-Ann

FWIW, every rose you list has not been hardy for me in zone 5 and I've tried them all. The only survivors have been Ch-Ching over one winter (looks dead this spring) and JFK in my warmest protected zone 6 spot for a couple of years. The others died over the winters even in my protected virtual zone 6, so that means they're only marginal in zone 6. The best thing you can do I think is give them some added protection over the winter in zone 6, so that they have a chance of some surviving cane to regrow from in the spring. As you mention, they survive so are likely to bloom eventually, but they spend so much energy regrowing all that cane they don't have much left for flowering when that's done. Some roses recover well from being pruned to the ground and are robust by June, but these roses just aren't that kind of robust in cold zones like ours.

I haven't found that extra fertilizer helps with wimpy roses like this until they have some substantial growth to benefit from it, but some diluted fish fertilizer or other organics might help in the short run. Of course, virtually none of my roses get fertilized more than once so I'm only speaking hypothetically.

Cynthia

So I'm guessing I'll have to whack my 2 Love Songs to the ground again next year? I was hoping it was just because of this strange winter. They are growing back, but I'm glad I went ahead and got a Poseidon. Loretta Van Lear was still alive. All two or 3 inches stayed, and even had buds. That's what it did immediately after I planted it last year. Tiny thing covered with buds. I think it must try to bloom to death, so I'm going to watch it, and pinch them off. There has to be something to help it, because it's determined to live, it's just confused on how maybe. lol

Sara-Ann have you had to cut LS all the way down all 3 years?