General help with roses

okay then if it's nice tomorrow I'll be out dead heading the roses. What about any damaged parts of the rose - footballs hitting them sometimes break bits off, how far below the damage do I cut to?

 

To the next dormant bud down. Pro is right about being quite strict with roses, they will reward you next yr-honest.

 

Thanks again, also another question, I'm full of questions today. How far apart should my roses really be? They're planted about 3' away from each other - rambler and climber, they've been there for about 3 years. They're doing okay at this distance with no signs of disease. Should I be feeding them or only if they look like they need to be fed? I haven't fed anything in the front garden since it went in, if I'm totally honest, I water them in at first and once they're seeming to grow I generally leave them to their own devices - actually that goes for 99% of my garden (apart from my willow because of high winds I've had to cut some branches off it).

 

I use a rose food once in the spring and spray fortnightly (sulphur or systhane) but then again my time is being paid for....

Up to you really.

 

Hi, you can buy a proprietary brand such as toprose and it advises twice during the growing season (I think) but I use fish blood and bone on my entire garden maybe every month or so, but I have to say I think i may be overfeeding my garden, on the other hand I always get lots of roses every year.

As far as the spacing of them is concerned this is almost entirely up to you depending on various things such as how you want them to grow, how vigorous they are growing etc. I have four roses planted within a foot of each in one part of the garden-and I prune them so as they "weave" around each other without the branches actually overlapping-I prune these continuously through the summer as well as a hard prune in early spring, and I have a climber which is berserk so I leave lots of room for that one.

Google some rose gardens so you can get a idea of how roses can look in various different ways, see what you personally like, swot up on any rose you particularly like and Bob's your mother's brother!

Don`t be scared of roses, people can get awfully stuffy about them, but the ones in your garden are just that - yours, and you can do with them whatever you like.

If I can give any advice really, choose strong smelling roses for any future purchases you make. It`s wonderful when you get a waft of them when you aren`t expecting it.

 

My red rose smells lovely and one of the two pink roses has a nice scent but my honeysuckles tend to drown the rose scent out in the evening you have to be quite near to the rose itself to smell anything.

 

If you prune it, and wait til next year for all the extra flowers, it`ll start to give that honeysuckle a run for its money.

Can`t be bad eh? Honeysuckle fighting a rose for dominance in the smell stakes! Lucky, lucky you.

 

I've just been out now to have a look at them. My red t-rose has got 1 bud on it, think it's stopping flowering now - it's never flowered for a long stretch, could I chop it back a bit to encourage it to grow more shapely or should I leave it as it is and wait until it's time to prune? I don't mind not getting many flowers on it if it means that the new growth will be strong and more robust.

 

Let it flower, no real benefit from pruning now really and you at least get a flower out of it.

I get the feeling you are itching to snip-thats good, it means you aren`t afraid of doing it. If you want to cut something off go and cut any branches that are rubbing against each other, or are damaged. Cut back to a bud in a slant as this helps the water run off the cut and not into the exposed stem.

Where is wiseold owl? He is normally immediate with roses, and very good and reassuring too. He worked with roses for years and years. And a bit of a maverick-he went against old advice.

 

And whilst I am here, I have been waiting for any even slightly ropey excuse to post this so I will



and this is when they are perfect in my own eyes



I beg your indugence

 

They're lovely. Mine seem to get about half open then it pours down and waterlogs the flower or even worse makes the flower fall off.

I've not actually pruned my 3 roses since I got them (one was moved from my parents garden and so was quite large to start off with but i think it needs to have a haircut,) they've had light trims, lol, always afraid to cut off too much and kill them. I think it's time to take the bull by the horns and do the garden properly. I get lots of football damage from the local kids playing football when the ball comes into the garden (all my plants suffer apart from the really really prickly ones - I wonder why, lol) so over the last couple of years my t-rose has had some damage and is really straggly and doesn't look very nice. It's also very prickly and so I need to put my coat on to do anything to it, hehe, as you can tell I really am a novice gardener (all my neighbours think my gaden looks mature - it's just as old as theirs is apart from I've cut some of the plants right back as I didn't really like them and they've grown really well. Some came from my parents and as these were more mature they've grown or appeared to grow quickly - like overnight). There just seems to be so much to do and I don't know what to do first, so I thought well most of the plants are shrubs and pretty much take care of themselves so I should do the roses.

 

I have a white one that flops after every rainpour, useless thing but they keep coming so I persevere, I get about 3 days from each flower in this weather and am continuously dead heading it, and that's the beast that claws me every time I go out to it. I am sort of proud of my scratches and dirty fingernails though, and if anything comes easy in this life then it ain't worth having.

Gardening often starts like that-too much to cope with, and sometimes with failures and losses I do sometimes wish I hadn`t ever gone out there in the first place but I am hooked and theres nothing I can do about it now.

Whilst your outside you`ll start spotting little bits of loveliness and you`ll get it done in no time really, I promise.

 

Thanks Lollipop, I'll try to get some pictures (don't shout at me cos theres lots of weeding to be done) parts of the garden aren't too bad, some parts of it are really bad, shrubs and weeds battling it out I think, probably got most of the stuff in the wrong place too but being as it's growing I'm not going to move it. I've got lots more questions to ask, but think I should ask them on the general or new gardening bit as they're not about roses.

 

I look forward to seeing your pics Katherna, and I love all plants-even weeds, although you can probably tell I have a special place for roses, second only to the stunningly beautiful peony.

There are lots of helpful people here, most much more well informed than I am, so ask away on the relevant thread.

 

I love peonys, I really like the dark red coloured ones. The flowers on them are lovely.