THobbs
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Joined: Tue May 05, 2015 2:29 pm

Old rose bush growing very slow. Need help with care instruc

I have an old rose (bush?) that grows very slowly and only produces a few blooms a year. Any suggestions for care and pruning?
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tomc
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 2661
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2011 2:52 am
Location: SE-OH USA Zone 6-A

A shovel full of compost, and a nice thick bark mulch. Spring and fall, forever.

THobbs
Newly Registered
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue May 05, 2015 2:29 pm

Should be dead heading? I don't even know what type of rose species this is.

imafan26
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Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

The rose looks healthy. They are heavy feeders so get some rose food and feed them regularly. After they bloom cut back roses to a thick stem with five leaflets. Roses actually will grow and bloom better with regular feeding an pruning. Make sure your tools are very clean. Use a degreaser to clean the sap off the tools and sterilize the shears with alcohol and wait 90 seconds or better yet use a torch. It will help prevent diseases.

It looks like you have a tea rose, as you have a single rose on a relatively long cane. Hybrid teas can be anywhere from 3-6 ft tall depending on the variety.

Floribunda and grandiflora roses would have flowers mostly in clusters (although some can be singles) on shorter stems than a hybrid tea, but more blooms.

Roses should be pruned into a vase shape for the best display and to open them up for better air circulation. The American rose society has some helpful how to videos. If you are interested, you can also join your local rose society, they often offer rose classes.
https://www.rose.org/about-roses/1319-2/
https://wattersgardencenter.com/wp-conte ... uction.pdf

tomc
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 2661
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2011 2:52 am
Location: SE-OH USA Zone 6-A

When your rose shows long stems with few to no leaves, it is time to prune back to what ever is actively growing. That said; rose and asparagus are the swine of the garden. They want the most food, water, sun, and mulch.

Feed and pamper them and they will reward you. Neglect them and they will sit & sulk or die.

As an off topic remark: rose hips are a barter item for other flower/vegetable seed.

imafan26
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Posts: 13962
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

How do you plant rose hips? I have had a few and I tried planting them, but none of them turned out. Do they require stratification or nicking or do they just take a very long time to germinate?

tomc
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Posts: 2661
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2011 2:52 am
Location: SE-OH USA Zone 6-A

imafan26 wrote:How do you plant rose hips? I have had a few and I tried planting them, but none of them turned out. Do they require stratification?
(italics added)

Hand that man a cigar. Rose seed is a tough, hard coated seed that likes to sleep out of doors in its pot of soil in the frost and snow. It will wake up in the spring. The first pot of seed I tried germinating indoors did nothing. I left it out on a bench for the next winter (actually I forgot it). It germinated some of its seed. After that flush I discarded the pot at the front of a flower bed. Where the following spring (that makes spring # 3) what looked ever so much as the remainder of the seed all germinated...

Kindness and germinating rose seed are mutually exclusive.

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13962
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

Thanks, that makes sense. I have no snow. I guess I will have to freeze them first.



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