Deborah, I never disbud and I never overthink this. But my rose year is on a different schedule than yours. It's the last of winter here with a lot of temperature swings. The roses are starting to leaf out a bit, but that's as far as it's gotten. But nothing will change my mind on the whole disbudding drama. I wonder who started this bit way back when. Show me the studies where this practice accomplishes anything. Replicated studies with the same results. Diane

Thanks, Diane. Do you ever get a bush with only one big bud on it as you head into your spring flush?

OK, you caught me there. No, that has never happened on a rose here. But, I still fail to see how removing the big bud and all the energy already spent by the rose to produce it, will cause the rose to suddenly produce many smaller buds. But you can certainly give big bud removal a try. Probably genetics or possibly weather helped to produce the monster bud, or rather, big hunkin' bud. I think I'd be curious to see the monster bud open up. Diane

I personally would not disbud. The primary buds very often give you the best blooms (larger, increased petal count, etc). There is also no guarantee that disbuding will provide the results your hoping for. I’d enjoy the blooms from the current buds and see where spring takes you.

I advise you against disbudding the dominant bud. The dominant bud gives the most and best blooms. This is my experience with hybrid teas, grandifloras, and to a lesser degree, with floribundas. Some shrub roses are left to their own devices, others are 'finger pruned,' as their growth characteristics dictate.

Some of my roses only grow forth the dominant bud. The 'insurance policy,' secondary buds stay rudimentary.

Strangely, my Quietness bushes are so predisposed to, independent of me, grow all three buds, the dominant one AND the two secondaries, the backups. When the shoot and its econdaries are about two inches in length, I rub out the secondaries, leaving only the dominant bud to grow.

If I wait until the shoot is longer, the scars left by the secondaries' removal are an access site for disease. If done earlier, the main bud can be damaged or even accidentally flipped off. There is no glue that I know of that reattaches shoots! It's not exactly a delicate procedure, rubbing out secondaries, but care must be taken.

If left to grow, the secondaries would produce inferior flowers, and even no flowers if the new shoot was emerging 4th. or lower down the cane from the top, dominant shoot on that cane.

After spring pruning is over I go back and even disbud new growth. My goal is to get a bush to mature, over time, to the point where after spring pruning, I am left with 6 strong basal canes on that bush. Any more (which is rare), and I prune the oldest of the basal canes to the crown, leaving me 6 good to go canes.

Of the 6 remaining canes I only want three new shoots (growth, laterals, whatever you want to call these new, spring first growths), per cane. I remove the weakest ones, ones pointing where I don't want them to, and, Lord forbid, ones already hit by the rose midge fly.

That leaves me with 18 new spring growths from a mature, vigorous bush...plenty of blooms soon to come.

The bottom line is, your roses properly pruned for spring, will do just fine and bloom lavishly if given proper care, disbudded or not, just left as they are. I fuss over my roses too much which gives them a little advantage, but not that much. I'm old and have a relatively small rose garden, 8'X18', 50-55 some bushes. I have the time to be fussy these days.

Years ago I heard from a well seasoned old rosarian report that tests were conducted on side by side same roses, one group was meticulously pruned, the other was just gone over with a hedge trimmer/brush cutter.....lickity split, all done...no attention to where cuts went, nothing else done. Both methods were done at spring pruning. By summertime neither group could be claimed to have flowered or grown better.

Hope I helped you.

Moses.

Personally I'd let them bloom and enjoy them. Definitely deadhead as soon as they're done to encourage the fastest rebloom. I always have several roses with only one or two blooms in early March, in fact, I have a few right now. (LOL, my first "official" bloom of this season was one Pat Austin on Super Bowl Sunday!) But I still get my overall big first flush in April. If you really want to take a couple of weeks off of the wait for the next bloom cycle (average ~6-8 weeks), you could disbud them now, and call it pre-emptive deadheading, but I never want to lose blooms. I have no problem getting excellent second and third flushes during our May grey and June gloom. I live ~15 miles west of DD... she's a tad more inland and I'm closer to the coast, but basically the same climate. No one in the real world would call our summers hot :-D

Thank you, all, for taking the time to answer my question and offer me your good advice. I truly appreciate it.

To be clear (at the risk of repeating myself). I'm not talking about 3 buds close together and then disbudding the dominant one. I'm talking about a whole bush that has already been pruned, that is glorious right now with all the new foliage, and instead of having multiple buds -- in anticipation of a glorious spring flush -- has ONE BUD for the ENTIRE BUSH. Since I'm getting clear advice NOT to disbud these -- I will not, and hope for the best! And it's not all the bushes, just some.

Susan -- our summers are not HOT. But in the hills, they get warm and dry come July/August, and then in September they get hot when those sundowner and Santa Ana winds blow and then everything dries out. And, when we hit the 90s with no air conditioning, my summer feels way hotter than any summer I've spent in much hotter areas -- because all those enterprising individuals have air conditioning on everywhere I go! :-) I freeze when I visit friends in family in hot summer places (and roast in the winter when they have the heat cranked up). The hottest I've been, I think, was at a wedding in DC in the middle of winter.

Anyway -- I appreciate all of you and will be keeping an eagle eye out for developing buds.

I was really hesitant to make that comment about our summers not being hot, because I knew what you meant. It's what I try to explain to people not in our area about our microclimates... two miles or five miles or ten miles makes a huge difference. One of my good friends lives on West Camino Cielo, and she experiences a more extreme version of what you do in the hills of Montecito. I also understand that you're looking for the maximum bloom in April before graduation and your summer travels. ❤️

Thank you, Susan. I knew what you meant! Compared to East and South with the hot and humid summers, or compared to bart bart in Italy -- or even my sister's place in Northern Cal with most days above 100 -- our summers are not hot. But when the days get hot...or those winds start blowing... We are just below where the Tea Fire started -- and I learned then that there are a few places in the world where the winds come down the passes and canyons just right -- and we are in one of those places! I need to retire and move off this hill so I can sleep on the nights when the wind starts up...

Deborah,

I think I’d let the one buds bloom, too!

I agree, on your pruning, Moses. Good explanation.

Dedorah,

When you originally pruned possibly a couple months ago to prep for an April flush, if you prunned those rose bushes down low enough, 6 inches to a foot canes, they should send shoots out in all directions- the lower the prune, the more stems in different direction you may have and new equally healthy canes will grow. At that time it would have given you the best mutiple blooms for April flushes.

if you removed the bud now, you may not have blooms until a month or so later, and remiving a top bud onlyva couple inches below-gives you new short splindly growth. depending on how quickly it regenerates.

For some reason those bushes with one bloom think the stem w/ a rose is their most healthy stem-first to create a bud. It is possible, other stems on those bushes may be slow growing & have buds, next. That happens to me-one bud appears to bloom then many in a week or so follow.

When did you prune and when did you fertilizer? What types of fertilizer?

To best create more healthy growth & blooms:

Try mixing liquid Alaska Fish Fertilizer and Morbloom Fish Fertilizer together. For roses needing extra help to perform better, I poured 1/2 gallon of my mixed fish fertilizers on each rose weekly for 1-2 months-it truly regenerates them & you see them really turn green, have growth spurts and MORE BLOOMS! When roses are healthy & doing well, I give them 1/2 gallon fish fertiluzer ince a month.

Liquid fish fertilizer ”weekly” is the VEST I have ever seen to regenerate! I have seen huge amazing results if appalled weekly for regenerating!

A super healthy rose doesnt need fish fertiluzer weekly. However, a poor performing rosecrealky dies well with fish fertilizer weekly.

I will use it in my baby roses at the beginning of spring to help them recover from a big winter. Ladt year it really boasted a lot of blooms in baby roses!

I purchase liquids: Alaska Fish Fertilizer &

Morbloom Akaska Fish Fertilizer

from Amazon.

Alaska Fish Fertilizer is high mainly in Nitrogen for gteen overall healthy growth. Morbloom Alasja Fush Fertilizer is higher id potassium & phosphotous for more bloom power. Mix & I always use them together for balance results.

The Indians first used fish for fertilizing. I have never seen such great results from any other fertilizer!!!!!!! I use it in all potted plants and roses, especially if they need extra help! .

Best Wishes!

.

I think I’d let all the buds stay. But after the main buds bloom , dead head them so they neither get in the way of the side buds, nor use up and additional energy from the plant. In the pics below, Love Song almost give 2 rapid flushes this way: First a flush of main buds, followed by a second flush of side buds. Almost 2 shows instead of one, which maximizes the spring bloom.

Main bud ’first flush’ of Love song. Here the main buds almost look like big ’one to a stem blooms’, the side buds aren’t so noticiable

Side bud ’second flush‘ ,a week or two later. Many of the main buds have been removed, and mostly large clusters of side buds have taken over.

DD, agree on the howling winds! One more off-topic comment. We used to live in the little neighborhood just south of Sansum's Foothill location, and just west of Bishop Diego. St. Vincent's was over our back fence. Being right at the base of the San Marcos Pass, it had the most howling winds I've ever experienced... it often sounded like our roof was going to come off. When the Painted Cave fire broke out in June 1990, it was 109 degrees at 6 pm, with the worst sundowners ever experienced. It jumped the 101, and was expected to burn through Hope Ranch all the way to the ocean, but it "only" ended up burning ~430 homes. It missed us by 1/4 mile, only because the wind shifted. So I have immense empathy for your wind situation!

Yikes! I’ve heard stories about that fire! 🔥

I was cleaning out old email and saw some of these posts I hadn't seen in the spring. Thanks again, all. Here's an update: For the bushes that only had ONE bud for the ENTIRE bush, I did not disbud (as you all advised). I had a great spring flush on most bushes. BUT three bushes did not give me more blooms... Turns out they are just stingy bloomers all year 'round. I'm looking at you Francis Meilland. I got one bloom at a time for a total of 3 all year and nothing the last few months. It was in its 2nd year. I may remove it this fall. Or maybe give it one more year. Another stingy bloomer was Summer Song, but that was one of the Etsy tiny own-roots, so maybe it needs time. And Pop Art did give a later small flush, but has been quiet ever since.

p.s. I don't disbud sidebuds. I want all the flowers. I'm greedy. I'm not growing for exhibition or even the vase. Just flowers flowers flowers in the garden. And I'm satisfied that my pruning and fertilizer were fine, not at issue. I have over 80 roses, maybe close to a 100 by now (I'm afraid to count). My challenges are usually the drip system, the deer, the gophers, the ground squirrels, the rabbits, the bugs....I feel like I'm leaving a varmint out of this list. And speaking of deer, we had a bit of rain about 10 days ago, and I didn't re-apply my Deer Out (thanks Diane!), and the deer came through and ate all the buds on all the roses in back. Sob.