'Heritage' is a relaxed shrub rose, with a nice, graceful, arching habit when left unpruned that I like in my own garden. No matter what you do to it, it will never have a stiff, upright, hybrid-tea shape. If you prune it heavily, its canes will tend to be "floppy" & awkward, in addition to losing its natural form.
I think you may have a rose that is not suited to your taste. 'Heritage' is a rose that mixes well with antique roses, whereas you may prefer the moderns, cutting roses, etc.

Randy

frustrated... my Heritage was covered in buds, canes woven with Abe Darby and Alchymist. Working here on the computer I heard something odd, looked up to see a doe and two fawns happily dining. Running outside, most of the sweet buds I've been delighted to anticipate blooming..... gone.

Ahhhh..babies. They thought you grew that rose for them. LOL

Thank you, everybody. Sorry about the deer, Bodica- how frustrating.

Viagra will help your drooping flowers, but it's only good for a day. Cialis or the other one will last for 3 days.
If you lost your job, Pfizer will give them to you free for a year.

Karl, Too B***** funny, thanks for the laugh. But I am so surprised at what you all say about Heritage, That is one Austin that I thought to be big and erect! (but with age as someone pointed out) Hope you guys are finding that eventually, and without Viagra, of course!

But this was not my own Heritage, but a friends, who has better conditions than I. I have one as a climber and two as shrubs, not in an ideal location but the jury is still out. I am confident that they will improve.! Fingers crossed!

Pauline

My PJPII is doing that, and it's a hybrid tea. I'm a little frustrated with skinny branches all sprawled out, nearly touching the ground.

Deanna

We need to distinguish between an arching habit and flowers lying on the mulch. Except for a few roses with prostrate habits, canes flop to the ground because the plant is immature. It may take 3-4 years for shrub roses to come into their own, but then they are more attractive and productive than hybrid tea plants. Heritage will support itself very nicely and can be fairly upright if pruned that way.

Another cause of the thin weak canes could be over fertilization. Too much fertilizer could cause excessive growth at the expense of strong canes or blooms.
A little fertilizer often is better than a lot all at once.
You'll get strong steady growth instead of spurts of growth. Or use slower acting slow release products and more organics like manure, fish meal or the many organic fertilizers available.

my belinda's dream is drooping and hugh pink blooms laying on the mulch. Just planted this March. Glad to know this will improve with age. Will stake it for now. Thanks.

A word about fertilizing mid-season. Most of my rose garden is in nutrient poor soil. Years of mulching has improved the soil, but it is still not viable enough to carry the plants through the season without a boost.

I wait until temps drop from the usual high 90s and apply a LIGHT feeding of chemical fertilizer that is immediately available to the plant while the temps are lower. The chemical fertilizer is immediately availabe to the plant and when the heat returns, the plant has been fed and I don't have to worry about problems that may arise from fertilizing in high heat.

Observing my plants, this is what they need. If you have fertile soil, this practice is not necessary.

It takes four to five years for a plant to mature in this garden to be the solid rose it can be. I don't prune new plants for the first three years except to remove dead or diseased growth. If a plant appears to be "weak", I don't allow it to bloom except at the end of the season so that it can complete it's plant cycle and move into dormancy. This practice allows the young plants to put their energy into growing roots and into plant growth.

This is not necessary for all of the roses I grow, so it is the plant that is my teacher and which tells me to help it back off from blooming and mature. Observing the plants to see what they need and understanding your soil is the key to finding the cultural practices that lead to a stronger plant.

Smiles,
Lyn

I very much concur, Lyn, even though we are thousands of miles away on different continents. I grow my plants hard with one top dressing in spring and water only for new roses. They take a good while to get going under this regime, testing my patience. Like you,Lyn, I routinely nip out growing buds. This practice is commonly used in fruit growing - the first years strawberry flowers are totally removed, as are little fruitlets on 2-3 year apples, cherries and plums (same family though so not too surprising). Some of the beautiful blue poppies, various types of meconopsis, are apt to be monocarpic, rushing into flower and seed then dying....but if the first year blossom is removed, this gives the plant a chance to become truly perennial. Roses are not shy, I find, in expressing their needs....and are terribly grateful when these needs are met. Of course, being a tad slipshod and inconsistent, there is always a fair bit of sulking going on in my plot.

campanula......

If you stop and think about it, Nature is also slipshod and inconsistent. Roses are geared to survive less than perfect care. Not all roses and not under all conditions, but in general this is true.

I, too, slack in having a perfect routine for getting things done in the garden. I blame it on my time-management skills, but in a garden, there often are those things that say, "This must be done right now", or just life interferes with my planned work schedule. If a rose cannot survive my general gardening style, then that particular rose is not the right rose for my garden and I am willing to pass it along to someone who can care for it differently.

Of course there are other factors which will determine whether or not a rose can survive in my garden and younger plants do get a different kind of attention, but this is one of the primary factors that impacts my decision as to whether or not to keep a rose and give it more time.

There are hundreds of roses that I think I might want to grow, but right now, I don't have enough space for all of the roses I'd like to try. So, if a rose doesn't like my style of gardening, then I can let it go and try one of the others on my list.

Smiles,
Lyn

mmmm, gardening stuff like right plants in the right place, various design concepts, soil constitution, nutrition, propagation blah blah were quite easy to grasp whereas getting a straight awareness of my limitations as a gardener took ages. Like an 8 year old, I had the attention span of a gnat and had literally dozens of whims and fads and wild ideas - usually utterly grandiose and unrealistic, mostly doomed to failure, some spectacularly so. It took around 15 years to reign myself in so I am not killing myself (and numerous plants).

My Lady Emma was very floppy for the first 3 years..this year it is much better. But I backed off the fertilizer a bit..and it seemed to help

I'm surprised no one asked Ken why he knows so much about ... OMG how funny, I had to take the names out as gardenweb said I was at risk of being profane!!! How'd you get those in there, Ken? Anyways, followed by the natural next step - a joke: How are men and roses different as they age?