Love that photo, Natalie, especially the gorgeous colors at this end. You will have some very nice bouquets. I'm no help about candelabra because once I've harvested the blooms, I chop the cane off pretty severely. Whether I cut high, or the entire cane, doesn't seem to matter. I get a lot of candelabra so I'll be interested in what advice you receive. Diane

Good question, and I was wondering the same thing to myself this morning when I counted 32(!) buds on a single stem coming right up through the middle of a First Crush I planted just last spring. I was thinking, this is going to be beautiful, but then what....?

What a bounty. I'm no help either, sorry, but interested too. Love the pale pink rose and the very dark one, in particular.

Diane you're supposed to be sleeping, I thought!

Towanda,

Great looking blooms!

Rose canes and the laterals that grow from them can be compared to plumbing in your house. The water supply line coming into your house from the water main pipe has the widest diameter of all the water pipes in the house. Pipes branching off from it are always less and less wide in diameter until, for example, the pipe to the refrigerator that feeds the cold water dispenser is a fraction of the diameter of the main line that runs underground outside.

Rose canes and the growth that branches from them are structured the same way. A husky, thick candelabra cane will support excellent lateral growth from it that is also quite husky, although narrower.

Also, canes store energy in them. Cut too much cane away and there goes good energy, into the trash wasted.

When the candelabra cane is finished blooming, before you determine where to cut it, visualise where the two, possibly three new shoots (which will shortly begin to awaken on the remaining cane below your cut), will lengthen to flower height when they are fully extended. Is that flower height in balance with the symmetry of the bush?

Cut the cane according to where you want the future flowers to be, height wise on the bush, endeavoring to maintain a symetry of the bush's form.

Moses

Great advice and explanation Moses. I've always wondered what to do too. Beautiful roses Natalie!!

It depends on the type of rose, and how you want it to grow. I have 'Perle d'Or', and I was scratching my head about why it wasn't growing much its first two years after coming as a band. It, too, would produce candelabras -- even when small -- and I followed "conventional pruning advice" which pointed toward dead-heading back to the next swollen bud below the candelabra. Later, I was too busy for a while to keep up with dead-heading, and a candelabra was left long enough that hips were full-size but still green. At that point, those formerly bare leafless candelabra stems started leafing out. Now after two years of changing my dead-heading to just snipping off faded blooms and leaving candelabra stems, my 'Perle d'Or' has developed a nice shape. Those candelabra stems get lightly thinned in late Winter, whereby I remove the thinnest stems at each fork, but otherwise they are left to form the skeleton for new growth.

One year after planting -- yes, it was a very tiny band when I got it in 2013.

Two years after planting (2015). After that candelabra bloomed, I cut it back to where it was leafing out. And I kept doing that, then wondering why it was staying small.

Next three pics are two and a half years after planting (Autumn 2015). First pic shows a typical candelabra, second and third pics show how previous candelabras built its skeleton. This was after I stopped cutting back candelabras.

The rest of the pics are from this year (2017). You can see that the shape is more spreading at the top -- this is because I removed stems within candelabras that were pointing toward the center, and any that were much thinner than the other of a forked pair. This resulted in non-congested branching, favoring stronger stems.

If you have Hybrid Teas which you prefer to remain shorter, narrower, and producing fewer but larger blooms on long stems for cutting, this won't be for you.


:-)

~Christopher

Thank you so much Moses. Great explanation - very helpful.

Regarding the photo above, they are from
the bottom on up: Intrigue, Striped Dahlias, a tiny Munstead Wood, next cup:
large reddish pink bloom is Alec’s Red along with Neil Diamond, next some
Daisies with one Frances Melliand, then a whole group of Pink Peace which is
mostly obscured, a small yellow-looking Jude the Obscure along with some
Abraham Darby, then the pale pinks are Calm Composure and Roberto Capucci , then more Frances Melliand and
last, but not least is a large candelabra of Belle Rouge. I chopped off some of
the longer blooms along with the top of the candelabra and just sort of left
most of the cane just hanging out there in the wind hoping for some good advice
which I really appreciate Moses.

Here are a few of the bouquets I made:

Calm Composure and Roberto Capucci together in the closer bouquet:

Here's the other bouquet with Pink Peace, Alec's Red and Neil Diamond:

A full vase of Belle Rouge and small vase of Frances Melliand and Intrigue:

I'm a happy girl today!

Wow, Christopher, great example and visual aids, too?! :-) This is all very helpful. (That's a really nice rose you've got there. Just lovely.) My take-away from these comments is to go easy on the amount of cane I remove which makes a lot of sense. Also, keeping mind shaping as I go is helpful. There's always more to learn about roses. Thanks very much.

To show what Moses is saying. I have 2 roses that have thrown out big candelabra's. I just went out and took a couple of pictures. Keep in mind your main cane is your main water line.

Dr John Dickman candelabra. Keep in mind that the flow of energy is going to the bloom at the top. What I REALLY want is my bush to fill out more. Not just one big pretty bloom on the end and so-so blooms coming down the cane.

From the top of the cane, look down and find 3 to 5 good looking canes coming from the main one. Take your pruning sheers and cut the cane just above #3, #4 or #5.

The main flow of energy is now going to those canes, which will now be bigger and stronger. If you have never done this before, yes, it's emotionally hard to cut off the top of these candelabra's but for the overall shape and health of your bush, grit your teeth and do it.

Another example is my HT, Mavrik

Before

After

I hope this helps to show how to cut the energy flow from the top, to the canes that will build your bush.

Wow! Some real beauties here!

I usually just snap off the spent blooms right below the hip until the entire spray is finished blooming and then prune the branch off.

Nipping out the top makes a prettier plant later but it's tough to get used to cutting that off at first.

Ken, I've been meaning to thank you for your description and photos of how to treat a candelabra. It is so very helpful (and it was hard Kittymoonbeam). I have so many more this year that I needed this help. It just wasn't feeling right to cut these strong canes down so far so I really appreciate your efforts to teach me something new. Thanks again Ken. Really much appreciated.

Just wanted to say thank you. I realize this is an old post, but I am constantly searching and reading...I needed this info on Perle!

Thank you that is great information I have always just cut the whole candelabra off so I'm gonna try it this way this year and see what a difference it makes thank you

I don't know if I can bear to cut off the top bud like that :0

I have one rose in my yard, Perle D'Or. I have no idea how to pruneprune so I just let it growgrow. It is now about 5 ft and sets candelabras all over. After reading these very informative posts I am enlightened. This rose is my mood lifter. It is perfection.

Perle D'Or does not need pruning. New growth grows out of the candelabras.

Agreed; 'Perle d'Or' is best grown without a lot of pruning. It is one of the Polyanthas with a heavy dose of Tea in its pedigree, and those fare best when lightly pruned (if at all). This type of shrub builds and builds on previous growth, eventually building up to an impressive shrub. Cutting off anything except dead wood will hinder the process.