Any Rose Growers Out There?
I've been growing roses for over 50 years but never had a year as bad as this one. Anyone else experienced the same? My roses are fed, watered when necessary and pruned in the spring. Last year there were masses of flowers, this year very few. And that applies to several varieties. Mannington Hall in Norfolk has a heritage rose garden and has hundreds of roses over dozens of varieties and, to be honest, they look worse than mine, spindly growth and very few flowers. Talking to their head gardener he put it down to the wet spring. He may be right. What galls me is that I know of several people who have roses, mainly climbers, that have had masses of blooms but they never get fed or pruned. Perhaps there is a lesson there.
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I have a lot of roses, and more up at Mum’s garden, and yes, it’s been a rough start. Lots have black spot, and are dropping leaves early. Having said that, mine have flowered wonderfully, and after that initial flush, now have much healthier growth, and are budding up well again.
Take off as many of the black spotted leaves as you can, plus any dropped off onto ground and bin, don’t compost as they carry disease. I think it’s possibly all the rain to be honest. Rather comforting finding that big gardens have had issues as well, not just hobby gardeners. I have spent all this afternoon very hard pruning a big rambler. It had a wonderful flush of flowers, but dropped a lot of leaves. Hoping it will now put out healthy new growth, and lots more flowers until Christmas now. It’s an Alberic Barbiere, fabulous rose👍
Edit…. I do prune my roses, but don’t feed them. I keep an eye out for early problems like greenfly, whitefly, but it’s definitely blackspot that has hit hard this year. That said, I have had lots of blooms, only one rose up at Mum’s struggling, and that’s spent too long in a tub, so only just finding a new lease of life.
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That's interesting Takethedogalong. Thanks for your comments. Conversely with my roses, blackspot has been less this year than last. Perhaps the lack of blooms may be a partial legacy from last year. At Mannington, blackspot seemed very evident on their roses. I've been cutting back relatively hard after the flowers have gone over. I'll see what the next flush is like in September.
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Quite the reverse here, John - we have perhaps one of the best rose displays we have had for years and - unusually, no sign of blackspot at all. The climbing roses in the front garden have done particularly well - but I did prune them really hard in February / March.
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Just shows what a lottery rose growing can be😁 are you quite near the coast R&R, just wondered if this might affect your roses at all?
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Open fields at the back of the house ttda, facing the sea which is probably a mile or so away as the crow flies. Takes about 5 minutes in the car to get there as I have to go through the town. We are susceptible to north / north-easterly winds when it blows and we certainly know about it then! I don't really know whether our climate affects the roses - the only thing I can say is that it's very unusual for us to get heavy snow in the winter
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Thanks R&R😁 I ask because quite a few of my roses were brought home from a fabulous rose nursery (well inland) down in Cornwall. Grower there said it could sometimes be a challenging environment, so I just wondered.
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About 12 years ago I created a rose garden at the front of the house. Purchased roses from a specialist nursery and for many years they all grew vigorously, beautiful red HT. This year has been very disappointing. They are suffering a lot from black spot and the bushes don't don't look particularly healthy. Now after 12 years they are getting to the end of their best I don't know. I need to treat the black spot to see if that improved things.
David
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12 years isn’t that old for a rose DK, with some exceptions. Mum has some that are 60 plus years old, and I have some around 25-30 years old. Some are very blackspot resistant, some are very prone. As you say, treatment/prevention of BS is key. Mine have a lot of healthy second growth and flowers now, but I’ve a couple of Albertines that need some serious attention. Both around 26 years old. One I think might be damaged, is it’s support frame blew down in a gale, and we did some temp repairs until I can prune it.
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We have 2 climbers which i put in some 13 years ago neither of them do very well, we have 4 bush type roses which were here when we moved in which are due to have their 3rd set of blooms, and then we have a couple that were here when we moved in which just seem to pop out from within the shrubs/trees, never feed any, mainly because when we had dogs if you put bone meal down they would scoff the lot , those i can easily reach i cut back Nov/Dec, or i should say the gardener does when he does the annual cut back .
these are 2 that pop out when they are ready the large rose only ever has 2 blooms on it at one time but normally flowers 2 or 3 times per season, the other has lots. i prefer a wild type garden so i dont have nice tidy borders and flower beds, i find if you have quite bushy shrubs, we have lots, they tend to block out the light at ground level and this helps stop the weeds growing, well that is my theory
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