Lovely colour combination of The Prince and Marie Pavie @Nollie.
Was going to say that!
Haven't really had a second to garden this week but went out at lunch and found Emily Bronte has turned all dusky in the autumn. Lavender Lassie has also started blooming again Amazing Day Gabriel Oak Boule de Neige W&Catherine Spot the happy freeloader on my dahlia.
Does anyone here have the Tantau rose, Giardina? Would anyone recommend it?
Why thank you all, a bright red and white combination can be a bit startling, but TP and MP are softer and not too bad together.
@owd potter re your MW, I would prune the middle canes back around a third and the floppy side ones by half, aiming for a roughly rounded shape. Usually it doesn’t matter where you cut, but for the side canes I would try and cut just above an upward-facing dormant bud (the knubbly bits) so that those buds will break and grow upwards. If a basal cane is really skinny and weak, better to prune it down to the ground and hope for new, stronger basals to replace it. MW does not produce basals as freely as some though, so you have to be disciplined and ruthless to prune out the weaklings. Canes will get stronger over time and better able to support the blooms, but nodding blooms are in much of the DA DNA and not much you can do about that!
Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
@Nollie, I wish I'd known that DA blooms would grow stronger and not flop so much. I bought some very expensive metal rose baskets to support GJ and WC when I first had them but the roses have grown so much taller now, they're not needed and look odd. To remove them though, I'm going to have to cut some of the older, strong canes down severely which I think will be okay and possibly even good for the roses? They are now about ten years old.
At 10yrs old, they would certainly benefit from a good prune @Lizzie27. Once established, it’s good practice to cut out old, woody canes right down to the ground to allow for new growth, at least one a year, but if they are pretty congested just go for it. Pretty much all Austin bred (as opposed to Austin sold) roses flower on new growth so you will give them a new lease of life. I don’t have WC (Winchester Cathedral?) but Gertrude Jekyll is a prolific producer of new basals for me so I usually cut out 3-5 older canes a year and it grows back with renewed vigour. I also cut it back overall at least 50% in winter and often whack it back mid-season too!
It’s the canes that grow stronger as they ripen and age btw, aided by good pruning, not the blooms themselves, so there is less tendency for the canes and blooms to hit the floor. Once a nodder always a nodder, but at least they look better on more upright canes 😊
It does depend on the rose variety of course, no amount of severe pruning makes Golden Celebration more upright or compact for me. Or at least not for long, as it has a naturally large arching habit and a tendency to throw out long octopus canes.
Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
@owd potter to make it easy for pruning first year David Austin roses make yourself a measuring gauge from a garden cane. Cut a piece of cane 15 inches long, put it an inch into the ground next to your rose and then cut the canes of you rose down to the same height as your measuring gauge. It doesn’t matter about cutting above a bud. In subsequent years you then cut the rose down by half removing any dead, crossing or weak growth.
@owd potter to make it easy for pruning first year David Austin roses make yourself a measuring gauge from a garden cane. Cut a piece of cane 15 inches long, put it an inch into the ground next to your rose and then cut the canes of you rose down to the same height as your measuring gauge. It doesn’t matter about cutting above a bud. In subsequent years you then cut the rose down by half removing any dead, crossing or weak growth.
That does not hold for climbing or rambling roses.
Posts
Just my usual plants, happy they’re still flowering: Draga, Olivia Rose Austin, Vanessa Bell, dahlia Embassy and Nicholas
Haven't really had a second to garden this week but went out at lunch and found Emily Bronte has turned all dusky in the autumn.
Lavender Lassie has also started blooming again
Amazing Day
Gabriel Oak
Boule de Neige
Spot the happy freeloader on my dahlia.
Does anyone here have the Tantau rose, Giardina? Would anyone recommend it?
@owd potter re your MW, I would prune the middle canes back around a third and the floppy side ones by half, aiming for a roughly rounded shape. Usually it doesn’t matter where you cut, but for the side canes I would try and cut just above an upward-facing dormant bud (the knubbly bits) so that those buds will break and grow upwards. If a basal cane is really skinny and weak, better to prune it down to the ground and hope for new, stronger basals to replace it. MW does not produce basals as freely as some though, so you have to be disciplined and ruthless to prune out the weaklings. Canes will get stronger over time and better able to support the blooms, but nodding blooms are in much of the DA DNA and not much you can do about that!
It’s the canes that grow stronger as they ripen and age btw, aided by good pruning, not the blooms themselves, so there is less tendency for the canes and blooms to hit the floor. Once a nodder always a nodder, but at least they look better on more upright canes 😊
That does not hold for climbing or rambling roses.
Good info
Well that'll just have to come off, no squeezing that back through.