I would say it was planted too close to the house, and I would move it farther away, leaving room for it to do its thing which includes growing canes quite a bit longer than 3'. If you don't move it now, you'll be chopping it forever, and it will be grotesque. Sorry to sound so mean, but a newly planted rose is easy to move. And if turning it the other way makes it hang over the grass, then your bed is too small and should be widened. I've heard that this Tea rose can get pretty big. Please don't cut it. Even though these are basically temporary canes that won't matter in a couple of years, they are all this rose has for now. Let it become the rose it wants to be on its own terms (like maybe 6x6?). In 3 or 4 or 5 years you'll be amazed with this beautiful plant. Be patient with teas. Look the other way and forget it's there, because it's going to look pretty unorthodox for a good while. This is a real live case of "walk by faith not by sight." Sherry Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

Fascinating to find this thread on PJPII. My own (three year old) plant looks smaller and smaller each year. New canes seem to just flop over and peel off of the main plant. Can't figure out what the matter is as it's in a prime location. Roses nearby look terrific. (I had a similar problem with Summer Romance who was in the spot first--it's canes would grow a couple of feet and then just sort of collapse and peel off of the main plant.). Last year it bloomed only once really. This year it has new growth but it's all very, very spindly. So maybe it is because I am in the PNW? @Kristine LeGault 8a pnw Easy Does It is a favorite of mine because it blooms constantly. That color is astonishing and people always stop to photograph it. I am dying to know how your nail technician killed it! Haha! Interestingly, I lost a Double Delight standard last year--just died over a period of 3-4 weeks and was about three years old. Turns out, there was a huge cavity under the rose where an old tree root had been (a tree my neighbor had). Evidently, the root had finally dissolved leaving a large cavity, and so my standard was growing roots into air. Only discovered it when I dug out the plant and the soil collapsed about 10 inches!

Hi Bart: Thank you for asking for simple terms, then I don't have to spend hours pulling up U. of. Extension research. If your soil sticks to your shoes, then it's clay and high in salt. Magnesium is what makes clay sticky, thus no need to add Epsom salt (magnesium sulfate). Clay soil is fertile and high in salt, no need for chemical fertilizer. What clay soil needs is buffering agent, or organic matter to neutralize the soil pH, and create space between the tight particles. Clay soil can be acidic like my last house, or alkaline like my present house. Organic matter like leaves buffer extremes in pH. Peatmoss, pH 4, glues up with clay because it's a fine particle. I get better result with large chunk organic matter, leaves (acidic at first, but buffers later), pine park (pH 4.5, acidifies longer, since it decomposes very slow). Sandy soil, and loose/loamy soil benefit from manures and chemical fertilizer... salt is not a problem since it can be leached out when the soil is loose with good drainage. I already tested muriate of potash (potassium chloride) ... My husband bought that by mistake instead of sulfate of potash. 3 roses haven't recuperate from the salt-damage and wilting, despite tons of watering. I will never use that stuff, except to de-ice in zone 5a winter. I put that muriate of potash on the new bed of tomatoes ... blossom end rots, had to throw 3/4 tomatoes away. High potassium drives down calcium, resulting in black-fungal on the bottom half of the tomatoes. I prefer unsulfured, blackstrap molasses as soluble fertilizer for clay soil, since it's cheap & low-salt, with NPK 3-1-5, 20% potassium, 17% calcium, 20% iron, and trace elements. That's better than cocoa mulch with NPK 3-1-4, and way-better than horse manure/bedding at NPK 0.7 / 0.3 / 0.6. Bart, your green manures and alfalfa hay are great for clay. Here's an excerpt from the link below "At the end of that first growing season we moved some roots of mint into the bed with the roses. The thinking there was that mint brings a substantial amount of minerals and other nutrients from the sub soil to the top soil because of the it’s deep roots. During the year as the mint grew to around a foot tall we’d cut it back and mulch around the roses with the cut mint. We’re still doing that now, so the roses get fed and we’ve got lots of mint for tea. The routine now is that during the year when the roses are in flower they’re constantly mulched and fed with cut mint, in the winter they’re pruned hard back and mulched with layers of hay." *** From Straw: I think it's clever to use plants like mint to fertilize roses, plus to keep deer away. Nutritional analysis of mint: 9% vitamin A, 2% vitamin C, 2% calcium, 7% iron, and 6% manganese ... the last 2 are much needed in alkaline soil to fix chlorosis. The picture of Summer Samba rose I posted in the other thread with very dark green leaves ... that has tons of clover growing in the pot. Roots of plants secret acid, so the soil where there was decomposed grass, tested less alkaline in red-cabbage juice. The soil with nothing growing on it, is rock-hard and very alkaline. Thank you, Bart, for that great idea about clover, I'm going to order clover seeds, they make a nice carpet around roses. Below is another shot of Summer Samba, bought from RU end of June, you can see the clover growing inside the pot, which I foolishly killed most of them: Here is a link that might be useful: Growing roses without manure This post was edited by Strawberryhill on Mon, Aug 12, 13 at 18:05

This is the first time my not buying plans have been able to stick. I had tried before and it was always a miserable failure as I couldn't stop buying. Not only am I not buying any daylilies, I am not buying any iris either. One thing that does seem to help is the fact that because I do have so many already, I often see ones that just remind me too much of something I already have.