Bumping this up.

I do have Marie Pavie and some DA roses.

I would like to know other Rosarians' thoughts, inputs or comments .

Noseo, Good luck !!

Thread Brump. Huge Fan of Woody Shrub Rejuvenation. My rose beds are only going to be 1 year old come spring 2020, but I can't wrap my head on Budded Roses and what ill effects will happen if/when I decide to cut back down to the base any of the primary initial budded 3-5 stems it came with.

--Mine is buried just a smidge below, hoping it will promote own root during it's lifecycle phase=

For years I thought that a new budded rose with 6 strong canes was produced using 6 pieces of bud wood. But something a poster here (I think it was roseseek) mentioned, within the last year, got me wondering. So I asked Rachel in December. She told me only a single piece was used - any more would be prohibitively expensive. And unnecessary.

A1an I don’t think you need to worry. Most of mine get pruned to the ground every spring and manage to come back every year. The grafts are buried anywhere from 3-6 inches.

I am wondering about new basals too noseometer. I have had rose canes die from flat head apple borer damage on several kinds of roses. One Tea rose Souv d un Ami had it's only cane killed. It was so sad to see this when the plant was just getting going to a more mature 3-4 year age when it could really start to shine. I know Tea roses don't like pruning but what can one do when the only cane is dying? The plant has tried to put out new basals in the past, but they got cut down by Spring frosts. Now, after it's only cane has been cut off, I so hope the plant will try again to make basals this Spring. I've tended to leave damaged canes if the foliage still looks normal on Tea roses particularly because I have read that any growth is still supporting the plant. Apparently, cleaning out small growth or damaged wood that is still making leaves does more harm than good in the case of Tea roses. All this is somewhat disturbing to look at the damaged canes and scraggly undergrowth that apparently should be left alone.

I guess I'll find out over time if the plants can get through these tough phases and grow more basals. In the case of old roses of any kind it is probably a gamble whether one can cut them back and they will regrow, or it will just send them off to rose heaven.

I do try to put the bore infested part of the rose cane in the trash or burn the pieces. I wish I could get rid of the borers or decrease their number.

Other plants, like Marianne, look great but are not making new basals the last couple of years. Is that OK? Is any "renewal" pruning recommended? I don't really know. This plant has 4 year old undamaged canes, so I am leaving her alone. Others that are Spring only bloomers I think I'll let have their Spring bloom and then cut off the damaged canes if they are not Tea roses.

I'm sure Jeri, Paul, Kim and others know better what I should be doing but I am just trying to feel my way along.

Dingo . Interesting. Due to the whole budded situation (presume there are at least 2 graft points on each stock to get a somewhat round branching). My concern is taking out a existing stem and having nothing come out of the -rejuvenation pruning-. Granted taking them down to the ground in theory (remove old growth to PROMOTE new growth premise), I have zero idea will this work when it's not all OWN root, but grafted.

I agree. It seems like a gamble to cut back that hard, when it is uncertain if the old wood can produce new growths, even more so with grafted roses. You might just end up with rootstock coming back. But even with own-root roses, I'm worried I might end up with a big dead stump in the middle of my bush, which could take a long time to outgrow, or if maybe when the plant is beyond a certain age, it might not recover at all and need to be replaced.

Noseometer - If it was own root, I would have Zero hesitation removing larger stems right around late winter/pre spring. Woody shrubs IME, when you do this, it definitely spurs new growth ! The only thing that is really foreign to me is the whole grafted/different root situation like I we have going in with the roses and what does occur or not when you take out said =stems= that came budded/growing.

I'm sure some GW rosarian will chime in what happen you cut flush a budded rose.

Honestly, without much GW -Yays-, I would err on the side of caution.

Noseometer would Marie be a candidate for notching? There was another thread about doing that to increase branching/ dormant bud growth. Or mounding the base to try to get more basal growth?

A1an of your roses are only a year old you probably don’t need to worry about needing rejuvenation pruning. And Rifis mentioned above that only 1 piece of budwood is grafted/budded.

Dingo, i had that safe about notching. It has a lot of information.

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5778863/notching-above-a-bud-has-anyone-tried-this

Sheila, when I did my ‘tea’ thing last Summer it was a tad late into the year and the new tender basal canes got eaten by the hungry rabbits this Winter. I suggest you wait until Spring then use the tea to start new basal canes. That way the canes will be up and growing high enough that the rabbits may ignore them.

BTW, I was amazed as to how many basal canes a cup of the tea to each plant produced. It really worked!

noseometer -

I may be over-simplifying it, but in seeing how little 5 inch stubs of bareroot grew to 4 foot height+ in a single season, I'm approaching it, that if a hard prune does not give you the framework you want / produces new stems and you are down to a not so great framework, it's quite easy to -start- over, as even new plantings seem to establish pretty OK even in it's 1st year.

- I hope I did not jinx it with this post. My Munstead wood only grey up to like 12-15 inches high-. I'm hoping this is the season it will be established and will show me what all of you Munstead growers like about it.

Good idea Toolbelt. I just need to wait until the new growth won't freeze.

Love your photos, Marlorena!

In my garden, roses seem to take at least 2-3 years or more to grow to a size that is visible in the garden, so that makes me more hesitant to severely prune. Still, I decided to go for it, and pruned a few of my Icebergs to about 5 inches. I left some tall and will do a comparison.

Doing pruning yesterday, I noticed that most of my Austin roses have no problems making new basals. Alnwick Castle in particular makes a lot of basals, and in fact they are too congested. I counted 25 basals on my mature plant, after the first round of thinning. The one I planted last year had about 10 basals. The only Austins that don't, are Munstead Wood and Abraham Darby. There were plenty of canes on my Bishop's Castle to prune out the old ones, after all.

It's been more than 2 months since, and I hard pruned some or parts of my roses, and moderately pruned others, my usual pruning practice. Now that the roses are growing, I can report on the results. Some of the roses have responded very well, and even responded better than previous years. One rose did not do well however.

‘Winchester Cathedral’ had a number of canes pruned to the ground this year, since it grows rather twiggy with a lot of basals. The canes pruned to the ground have produced a number of canes themselves, and regrowth has been vigorous. A few years ago, I did not prune the octopus canes on one of my plants, and that spring, there was a huge spring flush with the canes blooming at each node, with small flowers. There was little rebloom. The one I pruned moderately-hard produced larger flowers, and had better rebloom.

March 7, 2020

March 22, 2020

Today, April 12, 2020

‘Pure Perfume’ has been looking scraggly the past two years. I wasn’t brave enough to prune them all hard. I pruned some of the canes down to 6” and left others with moderate pruning. The plants have responded by bursting forth on the stubs with multiple canes and vigorous growth. Even the longer canes put out growths near the base, and I was tempted to cut off the longer parts.

March 22, 2020

Today, April 12, 2020

‘Munstead Wood’ has always been a rather scraggly plant. I pruned harder than I usually would with this plant. This year it has grown the most lush, lusty growths that it has ever grown. Perhaps due to the more winter rains this year? Perhaps also due to the harder pruning?

March 22, 2020

Today April 12, 2020

I have 6 plants of ‘Iceberg’ and I pruned 2 of them to about 8”, pruned two of the others moderately (by about half), and 2 others rather lightly about a quarter to a third. The two that I pruned hard have struggled to put out new growths, and it looks like they both developed cane canker. They both appear to be dying. This is very surprising to me because I’ve hard pruned ‘Iceberg’ in the past (another garden) and it did fine. Maybe something about this wetter winter.

Hard pruned a couple of months ago. (Photographed today):

Moderately pruned (today):

Lightly pruned (today):

So overall, it seems that roses respond well to a harder pruning, but it does not come without risk.

Good to know that Iceberg might resent hard pruning. Thank you.

Sheila, I have cut some Teas back to the graft, because of the horrible die-back they have. These are Mrs Dudley Cross (which I also painted with glysophate, intending to remove her), Anna Olivier and G Nabonnand. They have all grown very successfully since. The latter two were only cut back last September, and each have grown several canes, which are now about 5' high.

Mutabilis also got the same treatment last Spring. It produced two canes. Unfortunately both got broken off at the base not long after (by wind, I think), and it has shown no sign of sprouting since.

G Nabonnand

I love your pictures, Trish. I am a Tea beginner and don't cut anything I don't have to. I guess you had to. I've had an occasional cane break or have a borer kill the cane and I had to cut the cane off. I have not seen rapid regrowth in these relatively baby Teas when that happens. They are just trying to get established and they act insulted when this occurs.

This is so educational. Many of my roses are new so I haven't been pruning strongly, but will keep this in mind for future years.

What an informative thread.

a) Its so scary: I have been routinely cutting down canes down to soil level, or close, to 'refresh' an old rose, so that new canes that grow vigorously and bearing flowers more abundantly, can emerge. It does seem to help. But all my current roses are own root. I just ordered a whole bunch of grafted roses and it never occurred to me that, at least theoretically, there can be the above problem. So the consensus is even with grafted roses one can go ahead and prune in this way? Right?

b) Dingo/Noseo: I did that notching thing, and tried some more later. really,really old wood never worked for me, ie I never got a bud to wake up from such wood.

c)Noseo: Last year my MP produced a great deal of growth from the bottom that made it bush out, when I started using alfalfa tea. Something that toolbelt was alluding to above. You can see the old stumpy wood from which the fresh growth is coming. I started a thread and the pictures of this are at the very beginning. Maybe aa tea can help your MP?

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5749417/what-is-your-opinion-experience-with-alfalfa-and-aa-tea-qs

I see a lot of new growth from the bottom of MP this spring as well. The NPK in aa tea may get consumed but certain active molecules, needed in very small amounts, are very stable and can remain in the soil a long time. And not just MP, but most of my old hurting roses gave good basal growth after I used aa tea.

d) Thanks for the info about pruning. I have a lot to lean in this area.