CALLING ROSE PEOPLE:
I have two David Austin rose bushes/plants in the dirt ground of the garden that didn’t get killed in the summer of 2011. I have not touched them since then and they were growing totally out of order with long branches here and there. About two days ago, I whacked all of them off with manual hedge clippers.
They are not exactly symmetrical as I just whacked off limbs. It is my understanding they will grow large again in spring.
Do I need to do something to them now? The limbs, rather I should call them stalks, not limbs, are short but I could cut more - should I do that or leave them the way they are now which is about one and a half feet tall. Don’t tell me I killed them as I have a hard time cutting anything off a plant in the first place.
What about rose food? I don’t have any. Should I apply rose food and if so, what and when? I don’t have a bottle sprayer thingy that attaches to a hose so it needs to be something I can mix in a big water/sprinkler jug I have or it needs to be granules to sprinkle around the plant which would be the easiest thing to do.
Hi Marcella,
I am by no means a rose expert-all of my roses have contracted a terminal virus called “rose rosette virus” so my confidence in rose care has really gotten whacked this year-no pun intended. I went to the davidaustinroses.com website. There is some helpful info there on pruning and fertilizing.
I don’t believe you need to be fertilizing now. It’s better to start that when new growth starts popping out. They say pruning is best done late winter but it is not an exact science. The reason why you don’t prune now is that you don’t want to stimulate growth now and also the plant might have more die back between now and spring that would necessitate you needing to prune even more dead stuff off in spring. I wouldn’t worry about your recent pruning. You are in zone 8? Someplace warm? Shouldn’t be a problem. I certainly wouldn’t worry about it. You can add compost to your roses now. That wouldn’t hurt and compost is good for everything. Hope this helps. At least you aren’t like me-I’ve 9 knockout roses I need to completely dig up and dispose of. Plus about 4 climbers in the back yard. I’m so depressed about it. Trying to figure out what to replace the knockouts with-they were all across the front of our east facing house. I’m thinking of trying azaleas or something.