Finally loaded - Here is a photo showing the worst offender. It’s difficult to see but it’s a totally horizontal cane with the branching also growing horizontally, shoots and leaves getting blackspot, eventually rotting and falling off.
My dilemma is if I don’t prune off canes like this, they will affect the overall health and viability of the plant. If I do give them the chop, an open pruning cut in contact with damp soil may get infected...
Perhaps, as you say Malorena, I should just leave her alone and see what happens.
Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
Thanks for uploading a photo. If this was my rose I wouldn't be worrying about it too much, as Darcey Bussell is normally disease resistant, and will improve with age in this area - they all do, once those roots have got well down into the soil, you see great improvements to your rose. These are shrub roses, and so they should really be allowed to develop their own character, which also will improve over time, and they shouldn't be treated like hybrid tea roses, forever pruning and shaping...
From that image I can't see too much that would worry me there, it's shooting out well, and those shoots will start to make a framework, but I'm not seeing what you're seeing, and the blackspot sounds rather early in the year - I don't normally get any in my garden until late June and I've got about 70 roses, as for most, temps need to get regularly above 21c/70f for black spot fungus to erupt, combined with high humidity.. I never spray roses, for anything..
Do you get a drier and hotter season where you are? this situation may improve then..
Hi, thanks for the reassurance, seems I just have a bad case of ‘newbie rose grower anxiety’
Malorena, that’s a lot of roses, and I thought I was being profligate with 22, but there always seems to be room for one or two more...
I confess I am still totally confused by my climate but I guess a few more years here and I will get to know it. Like in the hotter south, we seem to have a first spring in February, temps got to 24 degrees C, then snow, heavy frost, lots of rain, followed by second spring which is now overdue, like everyone else’s, then a very hot and often tropically humid summer. I am sure somewhere in there the ideal conditions for blackspot must have occurred.
Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
Your weather patterns are quite changeable, which surprises me about northern Spain, I didn't know that...
My garden is quite small, but I grow so many roses skywards rather than outwards, rather like trees in a wood, everything up top... I have more scope in the sky than on the ground... all over the fences and obelisks. I can get 3 roses on an obelisk, but only 1 as a wide spreading shrub... I quite enjoy doing things this way, but it's rather unorthodox for most gardeners I think... I haven't sprayed a rose in 35 years. I think one has to accept a certain level of imperfection... best of luck...
I guess that’s why they call the coast the Costa Brava, although I am inland, approaching the foothills of the Pyrenees. We have swayed completely off topic, but your garden sounds simply wonderful, so you have any pictures of it in bloom?
Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
It sounds quite photogenic where you are, I hope so. Where I am, in the Fens of East Anglia, the wind is the main problem, and I feel sure that it won't be long before we get an American style tornado rip through here, which sends me and my roses into the North Sea.. I'm only about 6 foot above sea level, the land is flat and I have no tree shelter. I lived in Cornwall subject to Atlantic gales, but this is much worse... The upside is that the soil is so rich, it's agricultural land, and an otherwise great place to grow roses. I also have a high water table, and a creek which flows underneath a border, so watering roses would be absurd to me, and a waste of resources.. 2 foot down it's very moist ground..
This is why I can get away with all sorts of unconventional things, like planting roses in the same hole, and growing close together...
Thanks for asking about pictures... I'll upload a few, I hope it won't take too long, I'm not sure how things work here with photos..so I hope you can see them, I haven't reduced the sizes at all.. The main rose in this shot on the left is 'Blush Noisette'..[white rose] but there are about a dozen others..
the white is 'Desdemona'.. pink is 'Mme. Lauriol de Barny'.. single white is 'Kew Gardens'
'Kew Gardens' from the other side, rambling along a fence.. one of my favourite roses.
..with 'Purple Skyliner' a much better rose than 'Veilchenblau' its parent..
a couple of my obelisks, with various roses including.. 'The Generous Gardener'.. 'Royal Jubilee'..
Wow, I am stunned, Marlorena, how gorgeous. To create something of such lush beauty in challenging conditions, I do hope the sea spares you and your roses. I loved the look of Kew Gardens too and have recently planted one, along with Susan William Ellis, in my romantic cottagy patch.
Here there has been nonstop rain for a week, my nearby river is in furious spate and I have developed quite a few streams on my terraced land - famine or flood, literally. But yes it is stunning scenery around here and very green, normally. There is a lush volcanic zone to the north of me which is very ‘lost world’, towering granite cliffs, agricultural valleys, vast Spanish oak forests. If it’s weren’t for those dry, baking hot summers...but if it were perfect it would be no fun and I wouldn’t have stumbled across this gem of a forum!
Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
Daisy/Nollie, thanks so much, I'm glad you liked them..
I'm quite envious of your surrounds Nollie, sounds like a good place to tour.. I miss the hills of the south west, or the south coast scenery.. but we make do with what we've got... enjoy the rest of the weekend..
Posts
Finally loaded - Here is a photo showing the worst offender. It’s difficult to see but it’s a totally horizontal cane with the branching also growing horizontally, shoots and leaves getting blackspot, eventually rotting and falling off.
My dilemma is if I don’t prune off canes like this, they will affect the overall health and viability of the plant. If I do give them the chop, an open pruning cut in contact with damp soil may get infected...
Perhaps, as you say Malorena, I should just leave her alone and see what happens.
These are shrub roses, and so they should really be allowed to develop their own character, which also will improve over time, and they shouldn't be treated like hybrid tea roses, forever pruning and shaping...
From that image I can't see too much that would worry me there, it's shooting out well, and those shoots will start to make a framework, but I'm not seeing what you're seeing, and the blackspot sounds rather early in the year - I don't normally get any in my garden until late June and I've got about 70 roses, as for most, temps need to get regularly above 21c/70f for black spot fungus to erupt, combined with high humidity..
I never spray roses, for anything..
Do you get a drier and hotter season where you are? this situation may improve then..
Malorena, that’s a lot of roses, and I thought I was being profligate with 22, but there always seems to be room for one or two more...
I confess I am still totally confused by my climate but I guess a few more years here and I will get to know it. Like in the hotter south, we seem to have a first spring in February, temps got to 24 degrees C, then snow, heavy frost, lots of rain, followed by second spring which is now overdue, like everyone else’s, then a very hot and often tropically humid summer. I am sure somewhere in there the ideal conditions for blackspot must have occurred.
My garden is quite small, but I grow so many roses skywards rather than outwards, rather like trees in a wood, everything up top... I have more scope in the sky than on the ground... all over the fences and obelisks. I can get 3 roses on an obelisk, but only 1 as a wide spreading shrub... I quite enjoy doing things this way, but it's rather unorthodox for most gardeners I think... I haven't sprayed a rose in 35 years. I think one has to accept a certain level of imperfection... best of luck...
The upside is that the soil is so rich, it's agricultural land, and an otherwise great place to grow roses. I also have a high water table, and a creek which flows underneath a border, so watering roses would be absurd to me, and a waste of resources.. 2 foot down it's very moist ground..
This is why I can get away with all sorts of unconventional things, like planting roses in the same hole, and growing close together...
Thanks for asking about pictures... I'll upload a few, I hope it won't take too long, I'm not sure how things work here with photos..so I hope you can see them, I haven't reduced the sizes at all..
The main rose in this shot on the left is 'Blush Noisette'..[white rose] but there are about a dozen others..
the white is 'Desdemona'.. pink is 'Mme. Lauriol de Barny'.. single white is 'Kew Gardens'
'Kew Gardens' from the other side, rambling along a fence.. one of my favourite roses.
..with 'Purple Skyliner' a much better rose than 'Veilchenblau' its parent..
a couple of my obelisks, with various roses including.. 'The Generous Gardener'.. 'Royal Jubilee'..
'The Herbalist'..
just a few, I hope you like these..
Here there has been nonstop rain for a week, my nearby river is in furious spate and I have developed quite a few streams on my terraced land - famine or flood, literally. But yes it is stunning scenery around here and very green, normally. There is a lush volcanic zone to the north of me which is very ‘lost world’, towering granite cliffs, agricultural valleys, vast Spanish oak forests. If it’s weren’t for those dry, baking hot summers...but if it were perfect it would be no fun and I wouldn’t have stumbled across this gem of a forum!
I'm quite envious of your surrounds Nollie, sounds like a good place to tour.. I miss the hills of the south west, or the south coast scenery.. but we make do with what we've got... enjoy the rest of the weekend..