As long as the rose is in active growth, the results can be quite immediate. All it takes is slowing the sap flow and evening the sap pressure (think of it as blood pressure) along the cane and every possible bud there is enough sap pressure for, will explode. Congratulations! Pegging is very similar to training a climber. The next time you wish to encourage a climber to cover a trellis, wall, etc., remember what you did here and why, and you know exactly what to do. Kim

It looks wonderful, Teka, congratulations! I've done this with both of my Austins and it really does make them produce more blooms. And lower down where I can see, and more importantly, smell them!

Ok, I'll bite, what is pegging?

Not surprising at all. The rose is actively growing and would send out new shoots as soon as possible from all available bud eyes. By pegging it you made more bud eyes available for growth so it took advantage of that!

Never knew it had to do with the sap pressure, Kim, thanks!

PkaPeck, pegging is taking the tips of the canes and pinning them down to the ground. You can also "peg" a rose by curving the canes around and down and tying the tips to a trellis. Or, as I have done on occasion, to itself. Because roses usually only bloom on the ends of the canes, by stretching the canes horizontally you encourage new growth all along the length of the cane called laterals. Each of these new lateral branches should give you a bloom at the end. So by creating as many laterals as possible you will get more blooms.

Seil, what a great explanation of pegging. I would have droned on and on and probably not explained it so well. I'm so excited by this pegging project I want to do it with all of them. Of course they don't all have bendable canes, so that idea is out.

So it's okay to tie a rose to itself? I've been working all summer to contain my octopus to it's support, and I've been fretting about that "crossing canes" rule. As a result, I have about 20 tentacles flapping about wildly. If it's okay to tie the new, pliable canes up to older, woodier canes, that would solve a huge problem!

Thanks, Teka!

Flaura, I have the same problem with my Golden Celebration. Some of the canes just won't go all the way back to the trellis. And the trellis is pretty well covered already anyway. So I do tie them to each other. Some times the very tip that is tied up will die back some but I've had no problems with the canes that they were tied up to being damaged. I like the way it makes the bush fuller looking and not so flat too.

Yep---I've used up all my contact points on the support stakes and started the back canes running up a grid of garden wire on the house. I still have problems with big, floppy canes jutting out and getting tangled in neighboring roses. I've been running through tomato ties like crazy this year; I think I've gone through 7 packages. I need to find some green panty hose and make my own!

Hi Seil, you're welcome! What you're doing is really a modified climber training. There, you want to train them horizontally to cover the fence or wall. That results in exactly the same physiological changes pegging does. With climbers, it's to cover a surface, equalize sap pressure to generate increased flowering wood and manage too large growth of the plant.

Pegging was created to manage the overly large growths from Bourbons and HPs, which grew/grow pretty much like Dr. Huey (and many of the Austin roses) and predominantly flowered once and only at the tips of the long canes. When those classes were the popular roses of their day, rose growing was mainly the interest of landed gentry who had the room and labor to create and maintain such high labor pursuits. Most of them were exhibitors and many of those classes were selected for their flowers (pretty faces, again!) and how well they lasted while being groomed and transported to shows. That pretty well explains why so many of them are not the greatest plants but have gorgeous flowers. What we have today, I maintain, are the best of the best. The worst performers and the "miffiest" plants have pretty well died out (thankfully!) over the decades. Of course, there must be those who were fortunate to be planted in benign enough micro climates to allow them to be maintained, just as there have been HTs and other classes.

But, the point is, if you can learn to think like the rose, understand the logic and physiology why pegging works, then extrapolate it to climbers, you know everything you need to grow any rose which grows like they do. Of course, the reverse is true, also. Know climbers, extrapolate them to pegging, because they really are the same thing, just moved from one dimension to another, and you know how to encourage the plant to do what you want, where you want it. Kim

I hope I didn't do this twice. This is a great video from Ashdown Roses on pegging and tying a rose to itself is in there.
http://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?p=how+to+peg+roses

Saw the Ashdown videos and it is very informative. I have a problem with 2 trellis roses on opposite sides of the trellis not blooming. they are trained over the trellis on both sides and the trellis /arbor is completely covered only problem is it never blooms. One side is Purple Splash and the other side is Cherries N' Cream. They were both repotted this spring into the new pots near the trellis. The Purple Splash was blooming Jan/Feb in another pot in a different location, but still not very much, but at least it was blooming. Now the thing I am suspecting is there is a crepe Myrtle that shades much of the trellis early morning until about 12-1pm so it only gets afternoon direct sun. It gets regular fertilizer feedings with a blend of Mills Magic and Bloom Cote as well as the occasional organic ammendments like banana peels, coffee grinds and crushed egg shells.

What are the guaranteed analysis numbers for the two fertilizers and in what ratio are they mixed? It could be they're getting too much nitrogen which pushes growth at the expense of flowering. Might you have some Super Bloom or some other type with much less nitrogen and higher phosphorus? You might consider trying something like this for feeding to see if that helps trigger them to flower. I'd think in Florida as long as you have at least six hours of sun, there should be enough to have some flowers.

Even if the pots were too small for the eventual size of the plants, even in smaller nursery cans in the grower's stock, most climbers flower well enough to sell. Once they've filled the can, as long as the other requirements are appropriately met, they flower. Could the pots be overheating from the sun shining on them? They could be utilizing their resources to maintain instead of flowering. Kim