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Is it ok to trim bareroot rose roots?

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  • NollieNollie Posts: 7,529
    @Marlorena I love seeing your photos of your beautiful garden and gorgeous roses and always read your advice avidly. Such an inspiration!
    Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
  • MarlorenaMarlorena Posts: 8,705
    Thank you so much Nollie, and I just know your lovely roses which are fairly new, will take off for you next Spring...

    Here are a couple more for any interested viewer who loves roses..

    This is 'Octavia Hill'.. not an Austin but a Harkness rose... flowers all summer if deadheaded, leaving the last flush on as it sets hips in November... a great rose with an old fashioned look.. and suitable for the smallest corners of our gardens...[I have 2]






    ...this pretty pink floribunda rose with apricot tints is ''Irene Watts''.. it's a pink form of a German white rose called 'Gruss an Aachen', and it's this rose that David Austin Senior admired so much when he first started breeding roses in the 1950's, that he wanted to replicate it in his English roses... 







    East Anglia, England
  • Lizzie27Lizzie27 Posts: 12,494
    Those are another two lovely roses. How could I get my "Eglantyne" to look more small and shrubby like those two? I have it growing on top of a short wall edging the drive and it's a bit too tall and gaunt looking for the situation. 
    North East Somerset - Clay soil over limestone
  • NollieNollie Posts: 7,529
    Lovely, Marlorena, Octavia Hill is very pretty indeed. If I can get mine looking half as good as yours in another year or two I shall be very happy.
    Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
  • MarlorenaMarlorena Posts: 8,705
    I don't have that rose Lizzie, but from what I know about it, it's not a short growing rose and can be used as a small climber even... perhaps to 6 foot or so.. so I'm not sure if you can keep this rose in a compact state for too long..

    I think in your case, I would prune it back by half in Spring, or now even, I often do mine in November... 
    ..then I would prune again after the first main flush, don't just deadhead it or leave it or it will just grow big again...  you can keep some of these Austins shorter but you do have to be ruthless with the pruner...

    I've heard the scent is nice...
    East Anglia, England
  • CraighBCraighB Posts: 758
    Stunning photos @Marlorena. I really love the look of The Ancient Mariner. I do really like the shape of the blooms! I also received Boscobel as a bare root recently as I smelt it at a garden center earlier this year and I absolutely loved the scent! I just wish I had room for more!

    When I buy a house (Hopefully next year) I will be making sure I get a bigger garden and I can see me getting obsessed and filling g the garden with roses! I definately want some old the old roses too such as 
    Souvenir de la malmaison, Jacques Cartier, Charles dear mills and Chapeau de Napoleon.
  • MarlorenaMarlorena Posts: 8,705
    @CraighB
    ...thanks so much...  'Boscobel' is another one I like .. including its colour changes.. a group of 3 is stunning if you can handle the expense and have the room...

    I'm waiting for my 'Souvenir d l M' to arrive actually... I've had this before and miss it very much...  also had 'Jacques Cartier' in another garden... all great roses you have in mind... and great to see someone with an interest in these types... 
    East Anglia, England
  • CraighBCraighB Posts: 758
    Well my interest really comes from watching gardeners world and seeing these old roses in Monty's garden. I have never even smelled any of the older varieties but they just have a certain look which I love. And I think it would be nice to have the real thing and something which has a bit of history too.

    I have only recently gotten Into gardening about 4 years ago and I didn't even know what a perennial or annual was but knew thing is did know is that I hated roses!! I didn't like that they had long bare stems with flowers all at the top, I thought they looked ugly. However I visited Barnsdale Gardens and this is where I saw my first David Austin roses and it was the Geoff Hamilton rose that I fell in love with. And obviously because it was a shrub rose it didn't have the long bare stems. I have been hooked ever since!

    I also realised after visiting more gardens that the roses that I hated was the hybrid T and this was because the ones I had seen were planted alone with nothing to hide their bare stems. But I think as long as they are under planted, they can look just as beautiful as the shrub roses :)
  • MarlorenaMarlorena Posts: 8,705
    ..now you know why some of us move on from the hybrid tea Craig... David Austins are an introduction to a different type of rose... they sort of bridge the gap between the old and the new I think..
    ... there are some shrubby types these days amongst the hybrid tea class, and I don't rule out getting one or two again...  there's one called 'New Zealand' I've been recommended, and a red called 'Jubilee Papa Meilland'... 

    I've never been to Barnsdale,  but if you're ever down south and visit Hampton Court Palace gardens, there is a newly developed old rose border there... backed by a high wall, and planted up by the Historic Roses Group members about 3 years ago... so they should be establishing nicely now... one of the underplantings is Geranium 'Isparta', so I might have to get that one too..
    East Anglia, England
  • Lizzie27Lizzie27 Posts: 12,494
    Thanks Marlorena for that advice. I thought that when I bought it, the max height was 4ft but if you say 6ft, I might dig it up and move it, then get one of yours in the pics above.  You're right, the perfume is gorgeous - a must have for me. 
    CraighB - we went to Barnsdale last June and his roses were stunning then.
    North East Somerset - Clay soil over limestone
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