How you deadhead clusters depends on the size of your rose and whether you want it larger or restricted in size. If the plant is still young and establishing itself, then I grab the cluster in one hand and cut through the upper part of the cluster with the other. This at least removes spent bloom and prevents the formation of hips. The rose then decides where it will produce new growth. Most cluster-flowered roses will produce new flowering wood from both below and within the inflorescence. Next pruning season, I can select where to prune. You wouldn't want to do this for exhibition roses, obviously, but for garden roses, it works fine with the vast majority of cultivars. There are the odd growers here and there that go haywire no matter how you deadhead them. If your rose is over-sized, then use deadheading as an opportunity to reduce its size by pruning to the next budeye below the cluster.

This is a fun and very enlightening discussion folks! Your story about New Dawn, Kim, seems to support the notion that the extent to which hips interfere with a rose's blooms depend on the "energy" reserves that the rose has to draw upon. Tough as nails roses like Knockout (as Michael mentioned) or the roses Jackie and Zack mentioned have such a reservoir of health and energy that hips are unlikely to affect them much in any climate unless something else interferes with their vitality. Notorious wimps like Tom Brown or Grey Pearl might be killed by one hip any time anywhere, assuming they set any in the first place. In your story of New Dawn, it sounds like the rose was able to build up a greater store of energy reserves in a climate pattern more to its liking, and therefore the hips affected it to a much lesser extent. I was wondering a related question to Michael's - is every rose hip that spontaneously appears on a bush pollinated so as to produce viable seed, and could it matter that you are deliberately trying to get your roses "pregnant" in your breeding efforts, which might take more energy for the rose than a random hip popping up here and there. I'm thinking of the analogy of chickens, and I don't know if it applies here. When chickens have a set of fertilized eggs, they shift all their energies from laying new eggs to brooding and caring for the bunch. The unfertilized eggs that we eat are expected to be "ever-blooming", however, every day or two. I imagine that you're also leaving the hips on the rose far longer than the random hips I encounter, which also makes a difference as you've already said in the recycle rate. Related to your squirrel comment, would it help to tie a netting or panty hose segment over the crosses to keep it on the bush even if the critters mess with it? Exhibitors seem to do something of the sort for show blooms. I could totally see me getting manic if a cross that I've waited years to develop got carried off by a witless tree rat that didn't really want to eat it anyway, and buried it somewhere in my neighbor's yard! Thanks for the enlightenment, everyone! Cynthia

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.

I think that looks cute but I wouldn't leave it on all night. Every living thing needs some time to rest. Humans do most of of their growth and repair during sleep. Did you know the most weight loss happens during sleep as well? You can get the most out of it by not eating 3 hours before sleep, eating plenty of fiber at dinnertime and getting a full 8+ hours of sleep. You get a bigger release of human growth hormone around midnight as well. Sleep is good for everyone. My neighbor had an ivy on a windowsill and left the light on over it all night for security reasons. I always wondered if it was stunting its growth. Humans sleep better in a dark room according to sleep studies. Plants are very sensitive to light so maybe they need darkness even more than we do. You can see how it goes. Light will surely attract insects.