Controlling Growth

In response to the loving care just suggested for promoting growth, rosebushes have ways of overreacting.  Some of what they do will thrill you, some won't.  You must learn to spot the differences between clues to good growth and clues to bad growth as soon as they're detectable.

Finger pruning

Well-grown rosebushes are optimistic.  In the giddiness of spring, they throw out more promise of bloom than they can realistically support.  The remedy, "nipping in the bud," requires no equipment other than your fingers.  New growth is so supple that you won't need tools to remove it; just rub it off with your thumbs.

Bud unions need attention first.  Red swellings develop and promise what you most want:  main canes.  But there will be too many of them.  Ten or twelve new canes appearing on a bush you just pruned to six are too many.

First, rub off any buds that are growing in the middle of the bush.  Next, try to anticipate whether those you leave will interfere with others as they grow.  If you think everything will not be able to co-exist, rub some off.

In Chapter 8 I recommend making "knobby cuts" when you don't know where else to make a proper cut.  The places where these cuts are made harbor lots of dormant eyes.  When eyes start to develop, the wisdom of knobby cuts is substantiated.  As with the bud union, however, there are usually too  many sprouts to leave them all.  Remember that the lateral on which stems grow will have to support everything you leave.  If three buds appear right next to one another, it's easy to rub off the middle one and hope that the outer two will grow away from each other.  If more are massed in one spot, rub off at least half of them.

Shortly after I served as a consulting rosarian for the first time, I had an experience that made me seriously wonder if I had done roses right by agreeing to give advice on them.

We had pruned the roses at Garden Valley Ranch in two weeks of rainy weather and were taking off for a well-earned vacation in the sun.  Just before leaving, I helped my first student prune and told her I'd call sometime during the next month to see how her bushes were bouncing back.

When I checked in, she told me she had been so alarmed when all the new growth on her bushes came out crimson that she had cut away all the red she could see and then fertilized.  I almost dropped the phone.  I had become so accustomed to the new growth on rosebushes that I had forgotten I once didn't know it was red.

I felt so terrible about not forewarning her that I went over as soon as I hung up the phone.  Fortunately she had removed only the first growth, and the bushes recovered.

Rosebushes present seasonal colors out of order, with shades of red on spring growth that look like a New England fall.  Even mahogany red foliage will green in plenty of time before blooms appear.

Removing blind and vegetative growth

I considered omitting a discussion of blind growth because it's so difficult to describe, much less conquer, but I couldn't stand the thought of your worrying why something that looks so right doesn't bloom.

Who knows why, but every now and then growth develops that looks as if it's going to result in a bloom but doesn't.  It's called "blind" when it keeps developing without producing any buds.

The problem is determining whether growth is indeed blind.  Some varieties are trickly and show buds late in the stem development.  Others produce buds at funny angles or at spots where you're not used to looking.

The best thing to do is to compare carefully what you think is blind to what you know isn't.  If a budless stem has developed that is distinctly longer than all the other stems on the bush that already have buds, pinch it back to a set of leaflets pointing in the right direction.

Disbudding

Buds are removed for a one-to-a-stem bloom or for sprays, depending on which is considered more beautiful for each rose variety.

One-to-a-stem disbudding is mostly for hybrid teas.  Some roses produce only one bud, as if they know that's how they're prettiest.  Others produce one large bud at the end of a stem and smaller buds just beneath, usually two.

The terminal bud is the large one you want to leave.  Side buds should be removed when they get to be about one-fourth inch long.  At that length, they can be grasped at the base and snapped off close to the stem without leaving a stub.  Be sure to hold onto the terminal bud when you make these succulent snaps; you wouldn't want to end up with it in the palm of your hand.

No matter what you do, the terminal bud will continue to develop and open long before weaker side buds.  Take side buds out early and direct all energy to the terminal bud.  If you're thinking about having as much bloom as possible after you cut and want to leave side buds, forget it; they'll never open off the bush.

Disbudding for sprays is the opposite of disbudding for one to a stem.  Terminal buds are removed and side buds are left to develop.  Terminal buds left in sprays will develop fully and open before side buds have a chance.  If varieties look better in sprays, remove terminal buds and channel energy into the spray formation.

Generally, hybrid teas are disbudded for one-to-a-stem blooms and floribundas and grandifloras are disbudded for sprays.  There are exceptions, especially when varieties have been misclassed.  You might experiment with reversing the disbudding procedures, if for no other reason than to satisfy yourself which looks better.  You may decide that you like some hybrid teas in sprays and certain floribundas or grandifloras one to a stem.

One Saturday morning, a rosarian I know launched a massive disbudding attack on his rose garden.  As he pinched off buds from one bush then another, his five-year-old daughter was right at his side, asking him why he was doing it this way now and another way next time.  The question held no importance for her, nor did the answer--it was being with her daddy that mattered.

About halfway through the garden, he got a call from his office and had to leave.  When he returned home some hours later, his daughter greeted him with the news that she had "finished the roses" for him.  At first, he was still distracted by other matters and paid little attention.  Then, he told me, the probably meaning of her words began to register, and he rushed out to the garden.  No one-to-a-stem versus spray decisions had slowed her down.  He swears she didn't miss a single bud.

Handling basal breaks

Rose wood comes in three sizes.  The largest, called basal breaks, or main canes, is new growth from the bud union.  Next are laterals that develop from canes.  Finally, stems develop on laterals.  Apply the same rules for cutting all three anytime you cut to maintain bushes.

In the interest of shaping bushes and promoting new growth in the right direction, cuts sloping 45 degrees toward the center of the bush are made a quarter inch above evidence of dormant bud eyes, those red swellings that appear on rose wood throughout the growing season.

Basal breaks require a special treatment that may be painful for you at first, but not after you witness the rewards.  If basal breaks are allowed to develop all on their own, they produce a candelabra of bloom on a thick stalk and may be so heavy that you have to stake them.  The main problem, however, is that they're unwieldy and produce inferior blooms.  To prevent this and to get a dividend, do what rosarians call "snapping."  When new main canes are twelve to fifteen inches tall, pinch them back a few inches.  New growth is so pliable it can literally be snapped off.  Until you get a natural feel for snapping by hand, I suggest using shears and making cuts at the tried-and-true spot above a leaflet pointing away from the center of the bush.

Snapping does wonderful things.  First, it makes what would have been a candelabra a manageable long-stemmed rose growing on a lateral.  Also, because the bush is so frisky with the vigor of new growth, a second lateral soon develops just under the first.  Third lateral breaks sometimes appear.  Even if you don't get three, two are surely better than one.

Spotting suckers.  

New rose growth should stem from the bud union or above it, not from below.  Growth from beneath the bud union is from rootstock, the rose variety grafted to the hybrid.  Rootstock should remain underneath the soil where you planted it, concentrating its energies on massive root development.  But every now and then, from sheer vigor, "suckers" break through the soil and grow as though they're something you want.

Since it looks a lot like the hybrid growth, sucker growth can fool you.  When something keeps getting taller and never blooms, even when it towers above the rest of the bush, you'll realize it has tried to sucker you.  If it does happen to blossom, the blooms won't be attractive, and they'll be distinctly different from those of the hybrid.

To remove sucker growth properly, you must find its point of origin on the rootstock.  Don't cut it off at ground level, or it will just grow back.  Dig under the soil with your fingers until you find the point from which it emanates and cut it off flush, with no stub.

Right after I had learned about snapping new canes, I noticed a particularly vigorous one on a bush of Peace.  I let it get about fourteen inches high, then I proudly napped the new "cane" and watched for development.  When it began to grow faster than the rest of the bush, I was certain I had found the secret to increasing blooms and was embarrassed when I realized I had been giving loving attention to something I should have cut out the moment I had first seen it.  I'm still fooled sometimes, but less often now that I check where new growth comes from and carefully compare foliage patterns to make sure that new canes produce leaves like those on the rest of the bush.

Knowing necks

The neck (peduncle, in rose anatomy) is that portion of stem just beneath the bloom, down to the first bract of foliage.  Besides those that grow straight, two kinds of necks are notable.

Weak necks are unable to keep blooms erect.  Blossoms bend over and nod.  Weak necks occur mostly in varieties that have extra-large blooms and stems that can't support them.

I don't mind all weak necks.  I know rosarians who prefer them because they prove their blooms are large.  Something about that seems a bit off to me, but you'll never get me to hand over my bushes of Helen Traubel or Charlotte Armstrong, both of which nod in a wonderfully decadent way.  Nodding blooms are perfect for some kinds of display.  On a high kitchen shelf or dining room ledge, they'll look right down at you.  Crooked necks aren't weak at all; they just don't grow straight.  Crooked necks are typical of some worthy varieties and shouldn't be considered a fault.  Even when bent like a swan's, a strong neck can hold a bloom erect.

Once when I was still exhibiting, I noticed some days before a show that a bloom of Bewitched was developing nicely.  Bewitched is one of those roses that produces a lot of crooked but strong necks.  When show day rolled around, the bloom was perfect, but I realized that I could neither straighten nor conceal the very crooked neck.  Somehow I thought it wouldn't matter.  Neither did the judges--they hung a first prize ribbon around its droopy nape.

Living with croppers

Rose varieties that produce all their blooms in one giant flush are said to "come a cropper" and are generally less desirable than roses that stagger blooms. Croppers make bushes seem alive with bloom, but unless you need a lot at once, you'll probably prefer varieties that pace bloom more evenly.

Once in a while, of course, you will need a lot of blooms from one bush at the same time.  I remember a young woman who came to Garden Valley Ranch and told me that she wanted just a few roses for her wedding the next day, but that she'd like them all of one light pink variety.  She couldn't have come at a worse time; the day before we had filled a large order for pinks of every shade and had cut everything in sight.

As it happened, however, we had hybridized a rose that needed further improvement.  One of its problems was that blooms came all at once.  I remembered that it was flowering in the hybridizing area, from where we don't sell blooms.

When I took her to see the bush, the young bride-to-be said the color was perfect.  It had eighteen blooms and buds, exactly the number she needed.  I knew it meant I wouldn't have another bloom for hybridizing from that bush for six to eight weeks.  Even so, I cut off every one for her--somehow her wedding seemed more important than our cross-pollinations.