Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat

Growing => General Gardening => Topic started by: cardoon queen on October 19, 2021, 23:51

Title: Damage to an old rose?
Post by: cardoon queen on October 19, 2021, 23:51

I garden for elder lady and her well meaning neighbour has pruned her old standard rose. It's nearly 6' tall and I've slowly been getting it back into a shape .. this year she has lots of lovely blooms. He has left her with roses on top of high stems and some buds high up but has pruned everything off each stem so it looks like lollypop stems sort of!! I was wanting , now it's been fed well for 2 yrs, to cut a couple of the major thick stems right down in Feb.  Now I'm not sure what to do..... it's at least 20 yrs old but still a gorgeous red.

Title: Re: Damage to an old rose?
Post by: mumofstig on October 20, 2021, 09:18

If the bush is healthy, then it should still respond well to pruning.
Last winter I cut an old bush down to about 12 ins, this made sure there were at least a couple of dormant buds, on each stem, for regrowth, and it has grown like mad this year. There weren't an awful lot of flowers, tbh, but the bush is back to a healthy size now. I'm expecting it to be back to flowering as usual next summer :)
Good luck.