"Martin" wrote in message
...
Thanks for your feedback.

You're welcome.

I must confess that I am no expert when it comes to old
garden roses, but
those varieties that I have noticed in my travels appear
to fall into one of
two groups. The group that produces minimal new flowering
growth from the
base I would put into the same category as a Floribunda
type. The other type
that produces new growth that has borne no flowers should
be treated more
like a rambler.

Makes sense. I'm not as good an observer of my roses as I
should be, so I hack away in early spring and hope for the
best.

There are exceptions to every rule and cutting back stems
due to age could
well be one of them, especially when dealing with old
garden roses.

I have a New Dawn climber that has one cane 2" in diameter
and it was planted in late 1999, so it's not all that old.
I read in several of my rose books that as long as a cane is
productive, not to cut it. I was agonizing over cutting out
that huge cane, which probably accounts for 50% of the bush.
Just to be sure, I plan to check with the nice people at a
local Antique Rose Emporium and if they say to cut it out, I
will.

A rose
bush that produces ample new growth each year can have
older growth cut back
hard or cut out without causing problems and this will
keep your plant
forever young.
On the other hand older growth can be retained, with light
or
no pruning, especially if there are insufficient new stems
to replace these.

Those are good points. I have several roses that aren't
very vigorous, but I like the blooms a lot and rather than
shovel prune them I nurse them along on 1 or maybe 2 canes.
I could replace them with a rose of the same variety, I
suppose, and hope the new version would do better. I have
tried adding epsom salts to the soil and even roughing up
the bud union a bit with a file or metal brush to try to
encourage basel breaks. Sometimes it works, sometimes it
doesn't.

In some cases it is possible to leave older growth, on
some old garden
varieties, for more than three or four years. Decreasing
vigour of older
stems will then become your warning signal to remove the
stem when the time
is right. But don't forget that in general pruning has a
regenerative effect
on roses and can prompt new growth where there was
previously no sign of
this happening.

My problem is I'm mostly a casual rosarian. I'm good about
water, food and pruning, but I don't observe carefully so
couldn't tell you about the growth & bloom habits of most of
my roses, other than at the extremes, e.g. - Teasing Georgia
is a growin', bloomin' fool, and Purple Tiger barely
survives, producing only a few blooms. I think a good goal
for this year is to take notes about which canes produce
blooms, and which don't.

As a general rule I would still prune wood from a plant
that has produced no
new basal growth in the previous season.

I like that rule.

Pruning two third of stems lightly
and one third hard.

I've done that on a number of roses this season. Nice to
know my "guess" was right!

Remember also that any new stems that have not as yet
flowered should not be pruned, unless of course they are
blind shoots.

Well, I didn't follow that rule on some of my most vigorous
plants, else I wouldn't be able to prune much! I don't
like pruning new growth but sometimes it's justified, e.g.
to keep the center of the bush open. It's humid enough here
that that is a concern, and warm enough that in most years
the roses don't go completely dormant, and are putting out
new growth by late January.

Thanks for the additional information. I'm learning, if
slowly!

Gail