Sacha wrote:
On 2010-04-28 23:29:09 +0100, "Ian B"
said:

The garden has half a dozen rose bushes in it, in various states.
This one is about the saddest looking. It had severe problems with
black spot last year, such that I now informally know it as Typhoid
Mary. http://img594.imageshack.us/i/iansrose.jpg/

So this year I read up about pruning for about thirty seconds on the
internet, then hacked savagely at all the bushes in the hope of
creating some improvement. They're all sprooting now, but the big
problem with this one is that it only has one, or if you're generous
and squint your eyes a bit, two canes coming out of the bud union
(which also, as you can see, is rather a long way above the ground
for some reason). The rest is just a big lump of gnarly old bark.

Is there anything I can do to improve its prospects and get some
more, I believe they're called "basal breaks", or is it the Gordon
Brown of the rose garden that is just clinging on until somebody
does the kind thing and puts it out of its misery? It produced one
little red rose last year, which was impressive considering all the
leaves it lost (and it had not many to start with) in my attempts to
control the spread of the spot. Ian

Up to you, really. You could try feeding it and giving it a chance.
But plants, like people, do have a certain life term. Your rose may
have reached it. Personally, I'd give it a good shot of some kind of
fertiliser and a last chance. It's not easy to tell from a photo but
that soil looks impoverished and roses are greedy feeders. You might
do better if you get some good, well rotted manure onto the ground,
too in the autumn. The soil looks compacted so fork it over lightly
to let a bit of air in but without loosening the rose's roots and get
some pelleted chicken manure and scatter it around according to the
instructions and given the current drought, water, water and water
again.
And as a postscript, some roses get blackspot, some don't.

Thanks. The soil has been sort of dug over a lot lately planting stuff and
so on, but it tends to pack down rather quickly. It does need improving.
I've got a box of chicken poo pellets so I'll try that; the roses have
already had a generous amount of Toprose but maybe that's not enough?

I'm wondering whether cutting those crusty woody old canes all the way back
to the union will do any good? Or not?


Ian