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Etoile de Holland - Few Roses

OldmoondogOldmoondog Posts: 21
in Plants
Have a three year old EdH and have been training it over a window.  Since planing, there is plenty of rigorous growth but it has had very limited buds.  Unlike my Hybrids and Floribunda roses I have not been harsh in pruning, preferring to try to propagate it over the wall and window as in the photo, which is probably why it has not produced many buds.  I wondered if anyone can recommend a pruning method without curtailing the propagation over the window. (the red on the right is from a hanging basket and not a rose!).
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  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    I think, perhaps, Etoile is not the right rose for the site. Mine throws canes of 5m+  - it's a big old beast. With these long canes ne can train them horizontally and then they throw blooms from those. Mine is very thirsty. Have you been watering it? How close is to planted to the wall?  Good feeding will make a difference too - manure and rose food.

    @celcius_kkw grows Etoile in a small space (on a balcony). Maybe Adrian can offer more insight.
  • OldmoondogOldmoondog Posts: 21
    Thanks for your comment.  I have been watering it - perhaps not as often as I should considering the very hot conditions we have down south. It is planted right up against the wall.  I'll feed it more and use manure and prune it and see what happens next year!
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    Climbers don't really need pruning in the first years. You prune them very differently from bush roses and only take out old and woody canes (apart from any dead or damaged parts of the plant).  Can the canes snake around the corner?
  • OldmoondogOldmoondog Posts: 21
    They can, but I need to insert supports, which I am intending to do.
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    You would certainly get a lot more blooms from a 'sideways plant'.
  • Lizzie27Lizzie27 Posts: 12,494
    @Oldmoondog   My EduH took a few years to get going, also planted at the foot of a wall but 2ft out. I've fed it twice this year with specialised rose food and also mulched it with manure and it has bloomed much better. Not covered but okay for me. If yours is planted right next to the wall, it's going to need a lot of watering because of the 'rain shadow'. Two watering cans full every other day in very hot weather and at least twice a week thereafter.

    As for pruning, leave the long branch over the window but in January cut back the laterals (the upright shoots from the main branches). The more horizontal your branches are, the more it should bloom like Fire says.

    Good luck.
    North East Somerset - Clay soil over limestone
  • celcius_kkwcelcius_kkw Posts: 753
    I think Etoile is not the type of climber that gets covered in blooms (unlike For example Malvern hills) but each bloom is large and super fragrant.. 

    I grow mine in a very large pot and it has flowered every year, although this year (the fourth) has been the best. 

    The only thing I can think of which might improve flowering is by training the main canes in a more zig-zaggy fashion to stimulate more side shoots.. but that said the topmost cane of yours is almost hozirontal.. I would have expected more side shoots from that cane above the window.. 

    here’s how I trained mine 



    As I said above even at it’s peak it’s not smothered in blooms.. but the fragrance and size of the blooms more than make up for it…


  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    This is my peak in late April with the most blooms it has ever had. If you dead head assiduously you could get (possibly) get instant re-blooming. This one is about three years old and will put on a new bud  within a week of deadheading a bloom in the same spot during spring/early summer.

  • Lizzie27Lizzie27 Posts: 12,494
    They both look lovely @celcius_kkw and @Fire - far superior than my poor specimen.
    North East Somerset - Clay soil over limestone
  • celcius_kkwcelcius_kkw Posts: 753
    @Fire I could literally smell your garden from here by looking at that pic.. the number of blooms !! Is that just one plant? 
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