What to do with this gangling rose bush?
abstractisms
Posts: 6
Hi all,
I'm wondering what I should do with this gangling rose bush. Should I fix it to the wall? Prune it? If so, by how much? I am unsure of its variety.
Thankful for any advice!
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abstractisms
Posts: 6
Posts
It may be a climber or rambler type, but it's difficult to tell. However, the fact that it's planted where it is suggests it was intended to go up the wall! It'll need a good feed and plenty of water to keep it healthy through the summer, because where it is there's little room and the drainage will be good right by the footings of the wall. You can start now, as it's coming into growth and continue at six week intervals to be kind to it. Pruning of climbers and ramblers is a selection process through summer, removing a proportion of flowered growth to encourage strong new growth (which you tie in to make the structure of the plant) and, with climbers, a second flush of flower in autumn.
H-C
Thanks so much for your tips HC, very useful.
Mat
Looks more like a climber than a rambler to me. As HC says, hard to tell for sure at that size.
I'd suggest you attach some horizontal wires to the wall at roughly12" apart and get the shoot going off to the left as horizontal as possible and then do the same with the 3 shoots coming from it. This will train them below the window and off to the left , clear of the window and onto a nice clear bit of wall.
What you're dealing with is " apical dominance"
The shoots want to grow straight up, but if you get them flatter, you'll get new shoots coming along the stem, like the angled stem to the left.
The middle stem seems to have nothing on it, if so , I'd remove it to about 12" and see if you can get new shoots down there, if not, remove it.
The shoot to the right might be trainable once the shoots have grown a bit more.
Again, as HC says, feeding and watering are vital.