Hi there,
I was wondering if anyone would be able to advise how I should keep some young climbing rose trees that I sent for from a magazine offer. They arrived the other day in a plastic bag and are about 2 foot high, the roots are bare. I am uncertain how to keep them until I can plant them out. Should I leave them in the plastic bag? Put them in water? or should I get outside and plant them asap.
I would be grateful for any advice!
Also I have an old climbing rose in the garden that is very spindly with dead wood and long thin shoots coming from it. Should I cut this right back? I have read so much differing advice on this matter and also things I can't even understand, can anyone let me know in plain english!
Thankyou
Denise (a keen but novice gardener)

i'd stick the new roses in a bucket of water for 12 hours or so then plant em straight out....the older one i'd cut out all the dead and reduce the living by about two thirds....one or two living i'd take right down as low as possible to ground level in order to stimulate new growth this coming season. tie in the new growth and the following year reduce by about a third...next year some of those untouched take down to ground level...keep on doing this every year unless aiming for a permanant framework.

....is one way of doing it...does nt really matter what the regime is so long as its consistant...its possible ' climbing rose' quality degenerates on wood allowed to become years and years old .

oh and its said don t hard prune very young climbers as this can lead to reversion back to bush rose.

its also said ' rambling ' roses can be left untouched once a few young canes have been encouraged...this is done by cutting down to the ground all old wood once a new cane shows itself after planting....'ramblers' sadly mainly flower just once in the season having much greater affinity with wild roses.

with all roses the flowers should nt be encouraged at the expense of the natural shape of the bush...its a balance...loosing some flowering wood each year but maintaining vigourous growth throughout.

all this is only my opinion by the way i better shut up !

"Eyebright" wrote
[snip to a Eureka! moment:]

oh and its said don t hard prune very young climbers as this can lead
to reversion back to bush rose.
[snip]

Okaaayyy. That explains that! When we moved into our
present house ten years ago, my husband hard pruned
what he believed were shrub roses, and which turned out
to be climbers - America. They have mostly ok (one
died several years ago), blooming ok, but never put
out much in the way of longish canes, or anything
resembling a climber. So now I know why. :0

I don't blame him, really. Before I learned much about
roses, I managed to kill off quite a few. I'm doing much
better now.

Gail
near San Antonio TX Zone 8

On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 03:46:10 GMT, "Gail Futoran"
wrote:

"Eyebright" wrote
[snip to a Eureka! moment:]

oh and its said don t hard prune very young climbers as this can lead
to reversion back to bush rose.
[snip]

Okaaayyy. That explains that! When we moved into our
present house ten years ago, my husband hard pruned
what he believed were shrub roses, and which turned out
to be climbers - America. They have mostly ok (one
died several years ago), blooming ok, but never put
out much in the way of longish canes, or anything
resembling a climber. So now I know why. :0

I did the same thing with a rambler. After three years, it's still
just a large somewhat upright thing.

I don't blame him, really. Before I learned much about
roses, I managed to kill off quite a few. I'm doing much
better now.

Smae here, although I'm off and on in terms of "better". It looks like
I lost my first year Mel Hulse, unless I get some root ball basals
that come up. I neglected to mulch it properly when the weather first
turned cold. In fact, last year was a year of neglect for me, so I'm
not sure what my roses are going to look like this year. I'm not
hopeful at all, although I doubt I will have killed any others off.