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Rose with only one stem?
Meomye
Posts: 949
I have a couple of roses (one being Black Baccara, other, can't recall name) that only see to send up one long stem which only produces one rose and then it is finished! Is this usual or is there something I can do to get more blooms ? The one that I don't know the name of has been in for several years and is approx 5ft high and very thorny. BB has only been planted for approx one year, these are both in the ground. tia
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When you bought BB did it only have one stem? Have you ever pruned the one stem? Pruning should stimulate a rose to produce more stems. Do you feed your roses? Did they dry out this dry summer or did you water them?
But roses are cheap. Next time try to buy one with several stems.
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
Most roses need plenty of sun and a fertile soil to thrive.
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
BB is a hybrid tea so will only produce one bloom per stem at the top, but once that bloom is finished if you deadhead it down to just above a full set of healthy leaves with a little nubble between the leaves and the stem (that’s a dormant bud) that stem will flower again.
Did you plant the knobbly graft below ground? If so that’s a good way to induce new canes to shoot up from the base, but as others say, pruning HTs back hard every winter to 4-6” will encourage new growth and a bushier bush the following year 😊
I've noticed a few of mine are not due to settlement of the soil, so I give them a deep mulch and the unions are slowly getting buried.
They don't really need much feed. I give mine a handful of blood, fish and bone when I winter prune them around Feb-early March.
If they are repeat flowering varieties, I give them another handful in late June.
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
Don't worry too much about how to prune. "The perfect is the enemy of the good." The last time I heard, Aberdeen Council, who have miles of bedded roses, go through them with a chain saw set ca 1 ft above the ground in Feb/March. Visit to see the results.
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
How much you feed depends on your soil, Pete has rich, well amended clay soil which is high in nutrients and minerals, I seem to recall, but not all of us are so lucky! I feed twice yearly with DA or similar granulated rose food plus a potassium-rich liquid feed every couple of weeks during the growing season to encourage more blooms interspersed with seaweed feed when I can get it. Watering deeply, weekly is better than the occasional light sprinkle, about 10-15 litres at a time, twice a week in very hot, dry summers.
It has to be said that BB is not the healthiest or most vigorous of roses, by all accounts.
Nollie, what can I say, I was looking for a rich dark red rose and was seduced by her beauty!
I've never had a rose just die before.
I replaced it with felicite et perpetue which flourished.
Being on enriched clay, roses usually thrive in most of my garden.
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.