Eliminating Growth

During a season, uninvited growth can appear on bushes.  You didn't want it to begin with, and there's no need to keep it around.

Cutting out dieback.  

A rosarian could go gray trying to figure out what causes dieback.  Classically, dieback occurs when any rose wood is cut at the wrong place.  Stems start to die in a downward direction and keep dying until the spot is reached where a proper cut should have been made in the first place.  Sometimes it won't stop even there, progressing instead all the way to the bud union.  If you find it in time, a proper cut made somewhere below the dead wood will save the cane.  You must act the moment you spot dieback.  Even if you cut stuff you'd love to keep, get it out before it spreads.

I hate telling you this, but there can also be die "up."  I haven't the faintest clue to its cause.  All of a sudden dead areas will appear in the middle of an otherwise healthy cane.  Since the disease will be moving upward, you might as well cut below the spot as soon as you see it and stop wasting the bush's time; it can't rejuvenate and will waste energy trying.

At least it's easy to tell when you've cut away enough.  If dieback or dieup is present, you'll see brown rings within the pith of the wood you cut away.  As long as you see brown, keep cutting.  When you reach the point of healthy greenish white pith with no brown rings,  dieback or dieup has been arrested.

Taking of yellowed foliage. 

Leaves will yellow either from age or to signal a bush's need, usually for iron or nitrogen.  When green leaves yellow, they're of little use to the plant.  Too much energy will be spent trying to make them well, and it won't work.  Get rid of them as soon as you're convinced they're permanently yellow; they won't turn green again.

The first leaves to yellow are at the bottoms of bushes.  Here's a chance to kill two birds with one stone.  When you remove yellowing leaves from the lower part of the bush, you simultaneously discourage spider mites, which get their start on leaves close to the ground.  By midsummer I have often removed all leaves on the bottom quarter of the bushes.  Air circulation is improved and sprays of water during irrigation discourage insects.

Getting over poor performers. 

Of all writers on gardening, Vita Sackville-West has had the strongest influence on me.  She became an avid gardener and wrote about it out of sheer enthusiasm.  Her novels and poetry collections were well received, but for my money her best writing was on the cultivation of flowers.  Many of Ms. Sackville-West's theories have made lasting impressions on me, but one is indelible.

If a rose, or any garden plant for that matter, doesn't perform well, said Ms. Sackville-West, get rid of it.  Replace it with something that has either already proven itself or shows all likelihood of it.

Roses deserve a two-year test.  I have grown varieties that performed poorly the first year, then lived up to my expectations the second year and thereafter.  But I have never grown a rose that took more than two years to get me to like it if I was ever going to.  After two years, bushes that don't make the grade should be pruned with a shove.