On Tue, 15 Jul 2003 08:14:51 -0400, Henry
wrote:
dave weil wrote:
On Sun, 13 Jul 2003 12:44:41 -0700, Cass wrote:
Great shots, Dave. What's the defoliating part mean?
This plant sheds its leaves. Right after the end of blooming, it tends
to shed some of its leaves (but only a portion). Then, after resting
for a month or so, it starts to zoom into high-speed growth, i.e.
right now until fall. I still lose the occasional leaf but it's just
very slight. Then, in winter, it pretty much totally defoliates, with
just the occasional leaf here and there.
That might not be the case in your climate though.
Perhaps it is climate. Here in Maryland, it doesn't lose its leaves
after blooming. In fact, mine is quite a dense shrub right now (and has
been all spring and summer). This makes a good hedge if you don't want
anything larger than say a rabbit to get through. I don't have much of
a deer problem here but I wonder if they like this rose or if the thorns
would bother them.
Ahhhh, you can ignore my most recent post.
However, when I say it defoliates after blooming, I don't mean the
entire plant. I just mean that some of the more spindly growth drops
leaves. Right now, my bush is growing like gangbusters. If it follows
the trend of its 3 year lifespan, it will easily be 25 feet by 9 feet
by the end of the season. I actually trim the right side of the bush
to give me a path next to my fence garden. If I had known how wide it
was going to grow, I'd have planted it at least two feet to the left.
Also, basically you don't have to worry about whether it blooms only
on old wood, because it's *all* old wood when it blooms. This is one
of the first roses to bloom in the spring (mid-end of April). and
there is no new growth until after blooming.
Don't prune this rose in the fall or you won't get many blooms the
following spring. If you prune it at all (i.e. to keep it from becoming
so huge), do it just after the bloom period ends. You'll get lots of
new growth after that which will be old wood next spring and will have
lots of flowers. You can, of course, remove dead wood any time because
you're not liable to get flowers on that, anyway. If you want it big
and you don't prune, it doesn't matter.
I would think that it doesn't matter when you prune it really. All of
the growth that comes out this season will be old wood next spring.
It's obvious that if you take a cane, it won't be there for blooming,
but I don't think you have to worry about pruning right after
blooming, unless you're trying to stimulate new growth in certain
areas of the plant.
I've done *very little* pruning on mine. I do lop off the occasional
scraggly branch and take the tips off of come of the growth that tends
to peter out on the end (which stimulates new canes along the length
of the cane.
I'll try to remember to post some shots tomorrow that I just took, but
I don't have time to do it right now...
There are bloom pictures of mine from this spring on these two pages:
http://www.dotrose.com/whatsinbloom/20030610.php (half way down)
http://www.dotrose.com/whatsinbloom/20030520.php (at the bottom)
Click on the pictures for larger versions in a popup window.
I saw them. Very nice. Do you have a pic of the whole bush? Also, are
your blooms that shade, or is this a function of your camera? Mine is
a little different than the ones on the second link. The color on the
first link looks more correct to me.
I really like this plant. I think it looks pretty cool even when it's
*not* in bloom. I can imagine a 100 foot length of this. I only wish I
had the room...