Cadence, that brand new basal cane is a good sign that that rose is healthy and happy. After the laterals bloom you want to cut them back to just a couple of leaf nodes from the main cane. And don't be surprised when they regrow and give you another bloom in the fall. The best way to learn about your roses is to observe them. I walk my roses every single day, even in the winter, and look at how and where they are growing from. At first I used a notebook to jot down notes about different roses but over time I stopped needing that. You'll note after a while how every variety is different and which ones respond to which treatments in what manner. And when you prune or dead head a rose watch where the new growth starts from. It's not always where you pruned it at. Sometimes the rose makes it's own decision where it wants to grow from. In time you'll see that they all have their own personalities! Nick, I read your answer three times over and I can't see that we disagree at all. I'm saying basically that from what I've observed whether you dead head or stop the roses DO continue to grow until weather conditions stop them. Whether that's dormancy or quiesence they do at some point slow their growth down to a point where it's unobservable at freezing temperatures. If temperatures are such that they will damage rose tissue, whether or not it's new or old growth, it WILL be damaged. That normally starts from the top down so taller canes will die from the tips and still leave longer lengths of viable cane. Jim, I've been telling every and any one who will listen to stop hacking their roses off in the fall for years now. A lot of them use those dreaded rose cones (You don't even want to get me started about those!) and have to butcher their roses to get them inside those horrible things. They may be getting away with it but they're not doing their roses any favors. They start out each season with half the plant they would have and they still have to cut more off because invariably there is still some more winter kill (or damage, like rot, from the cone). I've found that if I leave them as tall as possible with as much cane and leaf for as long as possible they start out the next spring after pruning much larger and healthier. And I get first bloom sooner because the plant does not have to grow back all of it's size before it sets buds. Even in colder zones than I'm in you'd be surprised how much cane does survive winter without damage and is viable if you don't hack it off in the fall assuming it's going to die. Some years, of course, are better than others but that's to be expected. The winter before last was particularly warm and my roses bloomed nearly to Christmas and never truly stopped growing, albeit slowly, all winter. Last winter was a cold one and I did have to prune a little harder this spring but because my roses were larger to start with they still weren't stubs when I got done. And for grafted roses in particular I think the more cane you can leave the better so you don't have to prune down to that graft, chancing killing it, anyway. If you are worried about wind damage or "rock" over the winter securely stake and tie up any long canes so they won't flop around and damage themselves that way. You'll have much larger, healthier and happier roses in the spring. Michael, egads yes! I never even thought about the energy spent on hip growth. So stopping dead heading early could actually be very counter productive in preparing a rose for winter. Much more so than putting out a little new growth because that at least may help with producing some energy before winter as a counter balance.

If you're just looking for ornamentation in the garden then now would be fine. If you were looking for seeds to grow you should have left some to go to hips back in June. They take between 90 and 120 days to ripen fully. Most hips will turn red or orange when they ripen but some never change color at all. Just depends on the variety.

I let each individual plant tell me. if its late season (Late Oct or early Nov for me) and the bottom leaves are yellowing then I should reduce watering to the level of maintaining a low amount of moisture in the soil. I run my finger through the top 1 or 2 inches of soil and if the soil is darker than the top crust and my finger gets dirty (more than just dusty) I'll wait a week to water. I could use a moisture meter to see the % but have always just used dead reckoning. If the tips and recent season green growth are feeling soft or wrinkled I will give that plant a little more this week and revisit in a week. I also watch for warm spells since it seems most of mine only partially hibernate and the greenhouse can go over 90 degrees if its not vented. I typically go into the greenhouse every week to police up dropped leaves and make sure things look good. I randomly squeeze branches, pull off any dead material such as shriveling up inflos, "claws" that didnt develop, and feel for softness and look for other danger items. For me it's only about a half hour of time to handle my collection (never counted and don't plan to but would say 30-50). IMO having a good soil mix and plants well supplied with nutrients over the growing season can help by being a little more forgiving one way or the other. Its really hard to use a sequence of care that isn't specific to your local variables. I hope this helps and you experiment and find the method that works best for your plant(s).

Glad you found something you could use in that, Mary! If you haven't collected much seed before, here are a couple other things that might be helpful! On some plants the seed can be very hard to find! There are a few things I've never been able to find seed on! Some plants "shoot" their seed all over the place--before you even realize the seed is ripe! In that case, by the time you go looking odds are that it's already been "planted" for you and you'll find VERY little left "on the plant!" (Acanthus is a fine example of that! Sweet violets too, tho there's usually some seed left to collect on those!) Not all plants produce VIABLE seed! Even tho you find "seed" on a plant, it could be something that's sterile so the "seed" will never germinate--since there's no "germ!" (Hybrid ornamental blue fescue is an example of a sterile plant!) Some plants will produce "seed pods" but there won't be any seed inside! Last year I let my new sky-blue grape hyacinths ('Valerie Finnis') go to seed--they were REALLY ugly for a couple months!--and when it finally looked like the seed pods were ripe I collected them and didn't find seed in ANY of them! That was a real disappointment in that case, but since they multiply underground very easily I didn't even try again this year! ("Regular" grape hyacinths reseed all over the place--in addition to the bulbs multiplying!) Any hybrid plants you collect seed from will very likely not come true from the seed you collected! In other words, the plants you start from seed will be somewhat to a lot different from the parent plant. Most hybrids grown from seed tend to revert back to whatever the dominant plant they were "crossed" with was, or they revert back to the simplest "straight species" of the plant--just depends on how the hybrid was developed. Bottom line is that with seeds from a hybrid you never know for sure what you're gonna get until they bloom! To get a hybrid plant that's true to the parent you need to either divide the original plant, successfully root cuttings from the parent plant, or use some other "vegetative propagation" method like "tissue culture," which is really a commercial thing done in sterile conditions and I suspect you're not gonna try that at home! Wikipedia has a really good article on vegetative propagation! Hybrid Oriental poppies can be started vegetatively from root cuttings to get a clone of the parent, and if you're ever interested in trying that let me know and I'll copy/paste my directions for you! If you're interested in seed saving, you might want to check out some of the basic seed saving videos from the Webinars link I just posted. Seed Savers Exchange deals mostly with veggie seeds so I think that's what they show in the videos, but the principles are the same for any seed saving! What it all gets down to in the end is that seed collecting and saving is a fun--and worthwhile--thing to do, but it's never a Sure Thing. You need to just keep Playing At It and see "what develops" (pun intended), and don't be disappointed if you don't find or don't get what you were hoping for! And it's always a good idea to "proof" the seed you collect on some damp paper towel in a baggie before you try to start it, or before you give it away to somebody. And if you're giving hybrid seed to somebody I highly recommend you let them know it's seed from a hybrid and that you can't guarantee what they might wind up with (two seeds collected from the same hybrid plant can be different when they're grown!) [That's how many hybrids are developed! By crossing a This with a That in "isolation" and then growing them to see what they get!] Have fun playing with it, and once you get going come back and tell us all about your results! Skybird Here is a link that might be useful: Vegetative Propagation