My guess is that they are actually not "mature". Teas can take 3-6 years or more before they achieve their mature glory. They become self supporting by building up growth, and then new sprouts grow up off that, and so on, until a large bush is built up. My young teas frequently do what you are describing - I would not worry about it, or try to "support" them. Just let them alone, and enjoy the gorgeous flowers (if you pick them for the house, you can put them in a vase up on a shelf or mantle, to enjoy looking up at them). Eventually they will become self supporting - they are just getting started.

Jackie

Personally, I prefer to stake up floppy plants. The stems that are flopping now will become thicker and stiffer next year.

My Mrs. B R Cant is also flopped. Most of it is due to the vast amounts of rain that we have added to the load of blooms. Last year she was perfect, I should have limbed her up a bit for this year to avoid this. My tea is mature, but just has too much growth/leaves/buds/blooms all filled with water.

I hate being patient! But yes, these plants are right around the 4 year mark. However they were severely cut back by a volunteer so the new growth is soft. That's the culprit as they are having to start over in effect.

Like Jackie, I would stake those canes up.

Buy some of those green plastic garden stakes -- LONG ones -- jam 'em in the ground, and use that soft nylon "tape" to bind them up. Leave them tied until after you've deadheaded all of that bloom, and if you look like you're heading for another big bloom, leave 'em tied up.

We just did something like that, here.

We have a young own-root 'Belle Story.' It was making nice low growth, but has suddenly shot up a 4-ft. cane, with a big spray on the top. The cane was still fairly new, and we felt could not hold all that up. We don't mind the cane ARCHING, but we sure didn't want it to break.

So, we stuck in a stake, tied it with green tape, and left it.
I deadheaded the last of that spray, yesterday, and cut the tie. DH removed the stake this morning. It's presently still rigidly upright, but I'm hoping it will begin to incline toward the sun, and arch gently over.

Jeri

I had this problem this year We had a nasty drought last summer followed by a long fall with ample sun and rain, and the Teas made a lot of tender new growth. Then in winter we had two heavy snowfalls and they collapsed all over the place. I had to do some (very painful) pruning of excessively long canes. But now they're making strong new growth, filling in all the gaps and growing from the shortened canes, and are looking really good. I would say, shorten the canes, not drastically, so that the Teas occupy a manageable amount of space, and then let them do their thing. My bet is that they'll fill in.
I tried tying up canes after our first heavy snowfall, with the result that the tied canes broke under the second heavy snowfall. Of course we don't need to worry about snow for many months now, and perhaps tied canes would harden and become self-supporting by fall. But I'm wondering whether Teas might need different management in places that get significant amounts of snow than they do in places where it doesn't.

You guys are making me feel much better. I am new to the mild-climate antiques (teas, chinas, noisettes) but have been growing roses for almost 40 years. Since these roses are in the arboretum, this is a rather public mess.
Both the city arborist and the local extension agent are absolutely sure that these roses should be heavily pruned. In fact the extension agent used Charles de Mills as a subject for a pruning demonstration-- in early spring before it had bloomed, sigh.
I laid out this garden so that Mrs. Cant would have a 12 foot square space, and the tea beds are easily 8 foot deep. So I'll let them do their thing! Fortunately heavy snows are extremely rare here.

Barbara, my General Gallieni is having an unusual growth spurt in his 5th year. He's always been low and wide, recently being only 3-1/2' tall and wanting to spread and be as much as 8' wide, but there's no room for him to be that wide next to the path. So I trim a little and prop him up on two sides to keep his thicker canes from laying out. This spring suddenly he's got two canes that are making him 6' tall, but they're so soft they flop plus they originate on other canes (they're not basal) which are pretty floppy, so they can't hold themselves up. I have an 8' rebar right next to him, so this weekend I bit the bullet and tied the new tall canes to it with stretchy green tape and also the older canes that had been propped. I'm uncertain how tying him will effect his ability to hold himself up in the future, but I'd rather do this than chop him. This way he's out of the way plus his new canes are not laying all over himself, getting tangled into a thicket. GG has always been an odd duck, but then now that I think about it a lot of the teas seem to have peculiarities. The Cochets come to mind. :))

Last year I did the same thing only more so with Louis Philippe who was 6' tall with no canes thicker than your pinkie finger. He was unable to hold himself up even without wind and rain. Then a heavy rain totally flattened him.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

Barbara Said:
"Both the city arborist and the local extension agent are absolutely sure that these roses should be heavily pruned."

*** This is a common problem -- People who know NOTHING about roses are willing to listen, and learn that there are different types of roses, requiring different approaches.

People who are very familiar with modern Hybrid Tea Roses may suffer from Closed Mind Syndrome. They are sure that they already know EVERYTHING, so they refuse to learn ANYTHING.

Jeri

If the teas need to be pruned, it should be done with entire canes being removed, not cutting back canes in length. I usually take off the secondary canes to lower the volume and may take out an older main cane. If you cut a cane down in length, most teas will send up ugly awkward canes in weird directions, which is not very pleasing to the eye.

Exercise, such as being flexed by the wind, causes stems to make themselves stiffer. Therefore, tying canes up rigidly for a long time can encourage weakness. So Jeri's advice to untie as soon as you have deadheaded the flush is good. However, if you let a cane stay flopped, it will just grow rigid in the prostrate position.

One thing about the stretchy tape and the way I have them tied is that they're fairly loose and not tied fast to the rebar. They can blow somewhat in the wind. They just won't lay down. As Michael said, I don't want the canes growing rigid in a prostrate position, so that's why I tied them that way. Mine are not even weighed down by blooms right now and still were flopping over.

Barbara, may I ask why volunteers are allowed to touch your roses without training? Your extension agent is frighteningly ignorant. I say stand up for yourself and the roses. Also, immature teas usually don't look nice and normal let alone graceful, so you need to tell people they're still immature and to leave them alone. Nicely, I guess, or not.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

Buford touched on something that isn't always mentioned. NOT shortening main canes.

In my conditions -- canes we shortened die back. They just don't recover. At the Sacramento Cemetery, canes shortened that way don't necessarily die back, but they do grow an ugly "everywhich-way" candelabra of weaker canes, from the cut end. Either way, it's not a pretty picture.

Barbara's roses weren't mature enough to need removal of older canes, but this un-wanted butcher job is going to set back their march to maturity.

Another thing we have observed -- and I've discussed this with others who have long-term experience:

A young Tea Rose starts out producing canes that grow more horizontally than they do vertically. This habit lasts for a few years.
When I see such a plant proudly sticking up thicker, VERTICAL canes, I know that this baby is finally beginning to mature.

Jeri

Here is General Gallieni today. Five years in the ground. I hope you can see it okay. FYI, the bucket is plugging an armadillo hole that goes right under the middle of GG.

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Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

As Jeri said, some people's ignorance cannot be penetrated. Four roses-- all in a row-- fell victim to severe pruning. Lady Hilllingdon never recovered and was removed. Duchesse and Monsieur Tillier are recovering but apparently we are going thru the whole growth-cycle again. Maggie was pruned most severely; I would have bet she would have bounced back first but it doesn't look like she's going to recover, either.
Sherry, this arboretum is a tiny non-profit where volunteers frequently work without any supervision. and many of them are performing community service work required by the courts. They also "weeded" a large border this spring and removed about $500 worth of perennials. They assumed the dormant plants were dead. Where the staff person was while this was going on, I couldn't tell you!

Barbara, you need to spend some time talking with "Cemetery Rose," (Anita Clevenger).

The Sacramento City Cemetery operates in much the same manner. Each of the "official" gardens within the historic cemetery has its own set of volunteers -- tho the whole of it operates under the aegis of the Old City Cemetery Committee.

They, too, have a cadre of workers performing "Community Service." Some of them are seem to become genuinely interested in what they're doing. (DH and I had quite a conversation with one guy, this last April, about dogs, and selecting one that was right for your family.)

There have been similar incidents there, sure.

Someone in the last year or so whacked "Elisabeth's China" back badly -- and it was there I got to see exactly how ugly those "candelabras" can be, on a roughly-pruned Tea Rose. STILL, it works pretty well, and I have the impression that the many special tours of the place, through the year, increase the numbers of people who know about the place, and come to care about it.

I think I need to do a slide show of images from the place, which can go up on the Heritage Roses Group website.

Jeri

Thanks for the info on General Gallieni. My one year old is flopping in all directions and the sideways thing is becoming chronic. Mary

About the volunteers and staff...ouch. I hope you manage to educate the people who are caring for your roses. (By the way, I understand about the perennials! There are very few people I would trust to weed my garden!!)
Concerning shorting tea canes versus eliminating the canes entirely: with respect for those whose experiences have been different, I regularly shorten canes on my few large Tea roses, just to keep them from invading the road, and it works. They send out new growth from close to the pruned end and fill in, and the bush is as graceful as before. The one that gets this treatment most often is 'Mme. Antoine Mari'. I usually cut her back by about a quarter in a single annual pruning. I don't get cane dieback. In my case this procedure works.

Tuggy3, my General Gallieni laid on the ground for two years, barely growing, before he started sending up vertical canes and they were still short. This new development is a real surprise. Never a dull moment with teas. Just when you think you've figured them out they do something different.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

Thanks Sherry. I was getting discouraged with GG's habits but it is healthy and growing so I'll just wait for it to head upward. I did prop it a bit by enclosing it in a triangle of those clip together one foot fencing sections. That keeps the blooms from laying on the ground. Mostly I'm just deadheading it as it buds.