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Advice after landscapers mangled rose bush

3 years ago

We have a large rose bush in our front yard that unfortunately the landscapers we hired last summer (2019) mangled/butchered. It was previously very large, lush, and wide. Unbeknownst to us when we hired this crew to do some trimming and weed pulling, they cut off a substantial portion of the branches/leaves. This year, the roses have come in, but the rose bush appears more like a tall tree/bouquet in its overall shape. In other words, the bottom portion looks like a brown "trunk" with a flourish of roses at the top (and the overall appearance is lopsided because of the poor job they did). I'm not sure what to do and am seeking advice; I don't want to trim it further for fear of losing what's left. But I'm also not sure if we're ever going to regain the growth in the lower part and if the rose bush will have a wide/broad/full appearance again (as opposed to simply growing taller and remaining narrow in the lower part; I don't know if that poses a problem for the growth/health of the plant if it's not growing outward and laterally to the degree it was previously since the growth has been redirected to the top). I'm including some before (2018) and after (2020) photos so you can see what we're dealing with. I have no experience gardening so I'm looking for advice in terms of whether to prune again (and if so, pointers on where) or if we can expect the plant to regain its former shape in a few years if we leave it as is. Thanks in advance for any insights people have; I've never successfully grown roses before so am not sure what to do!

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Comments (5)

rifis (zone 6b-7a NJ)
3 years ago
The yew, holly, hosta and peony all will be happier.

I see the primary forum in which this was placed is Landscape Design.

I encourage the designers to address the OP’s fear of trimming further.

I recommend chopping it down to just a few inches from the ground. Now. Three months ago would have been preferable. It looks like it may be that vigorous ubiquitous rose.
dianela7analabama
3 years ago
I would follow rifis advice. This rose needs to be rejuvenated. Cut it down and let it come back again. If it does not recover go to your nearest Lowe’s, Home Depot and buy a new double knockout which seems to be the rose in the picture. These roses are very tough and I expect this one will recover nicely. Good luck!
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Hi Kendra, copy the html in the first box under "Grab Your Code" on the tinypic website to post the photo here directly. It makes it a lot easier to get comments that way. What grows from the buds: 1. leaves 2. small twigs that have a flower or two at the end, and a leaf or two. 3. larger branches that have a cluster of flowers and a few leaves 4. Huge stems that rival the size of the original stem. Whether 1,2,3, or 4 are what you get from each bud depends on a lot of different factors, the cultivar, the location of the plant in your yard, the climate zone, the amount of water and nutrients the plant gets, the location on the cane where the bud resides. The easiest thing to do is what you have already started: take photos after pruning, and see what happens. Did you get a great spring flush from your rose, or one that was worse that last year? Are the canes dying back from where you cut, or sprouting strong new growth? The small twiggy growth you left--is that producing some flowers, or nothing? Observing what happens tells you how to prune next year. Write things down, and every year, the rose will get better and better based on your knowledge. It's not a cut-and-dried thing because there are so many variables. The basics are: removed dead, damaged, and diseased wood, keep it a managable size so you can handle it without injuring your self. A trick I use is taking a long pole pruner to reach the highest growth. I grab it and pull it down and either trim it or arch it over so I can reach it later. Climbing rose care is an art, not a science. Check YouTube, there are some good "how to prune a climbing rose" videos on there.
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Hi Christy, I don't know what your pictured rose is, but one that you might like would be John Franklin. It does well in the south, not just in Canada. Antique Rose Emporium carries it, and that's an excellent and dependable place to buy roses. Theirs are ownroot 2-gallon plants that are a bit larger than most places send. Maggie is definitely a rosy red when it blooms and I'd highly recommend that one, even though as it ages it gradually turns purply. Not a spot of disease anywhere on ours. I really think everyone ought to have at least one Maggie in their yard; it's a perfect rose on a very healthy bush! Ours is relatively slow growing. Planted in the yard from a gallon-sized plant in April here, it's only about maybe 14" high now, but we let its buds develop and bloom lots (or it might have been a larger plant by now). We've had Double Knockout and liked it. No disease of any kind, even though it was planted in too much shade to bloom heavily. The small double flowers were attractive too, though not the very large kind you might think of for filling a vase with. The plants themselves were well-filled with unusually attractive foliage. A nice landscape plant. General Schablikine is often considered a red, but I don't think of it as a red, but as variously shaded tones of deep pink to dusty pink on the same bloom. It needs no spray and the flowers are ultra interesting. They don't last particularly long in a vase, but we keep cutting them anyway because I want to keep looking at it all the time. It will bloom on into the beginnings of wintertime. For all our roses here in the Piedmont of the state, we don't use sprays. We choose roses that are suited to no-spray conditions, and there are a good many of them. If you get a rose that's claimed to be as healthy as this one (Antique Rose Emporium is careful to be truthful in their descriptions) and if you use all-organic growing methods and fertilizers from the start, there's every chance that you won't need to use poisonous chemicals in your yard in order to grow roses successfully. Variety choice is key here. Best wishes, Mary P.S. I hope you made it through the hurricane in good shape. Here is a link that might be useful: John Franklin
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Prune it to the shape you would like at any time of year. We have Dr. Huey and it is not hurt one bit by pruning. It doesn't get diseases here and is very healthy. It will throw 12 ft canes that get in the way of the walk way so we always cut those off and tied some up. The flower production in the spring was never hurt, likely because there was so much of it. We are about to prune off some long throw canes from our Dr. Huey.
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gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
3 years ago
It was a beautiful rose before and it can be again :-) And the above is a very reasonable suggestion, although that approach should have been done several months ago.

Few roses can go through life looking good without frequent pruning attention......as in annually every late winter or early spring at a minimum. Apparently this shrub has not received any recently, as indicated by that mass of old stems and canes exposed by the landscapers. What you can do now is to carefully prune out at the base of the plant any canes that are obviously dead and any thin stems emerging from lower canes that are leafless or smaller in diameter than a pencil. You want to open up or clear out that center congested area to improve air circulation and encourage new growth.

Other than trimming back wayward or long arching canes, which you can do any time, serious hard pruning should be left until late winter (late February or March, typically). Ideally, you want to reduce that mass of canes arising from the ground to just a few of the largest and healthiest (5-7 or so) and cut back the top growth by at least 1/3, cutting back to an outward pointing bud. Fertilize at that time with a rose fertilizer that contains alfalfa meal (or just use alfalfa meal), as that will encourage new basal canes to appear. Continue this regime on an annual basis for a vibrant, healthy rose that does not outgrow its space.
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Yardvaark
3 years ago
I would cut the whole plant down to a few inches high and let it regrow from the established root system, right after the main bloom is finished. It will be thicker, fresh foliage, more well branched and with better sorted/arranged canes. And the rose will bloom fine in the future. Feed it during the period of regrowth.
Fori
3 years ago
You can get sturdy gloves that go up to your elbows made especially for roses. It might be worth investing in a pair.

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