Climbers that won't quit: I'm afraid to even think about pruning New Dawn next spring...

» stlgal - I'm afraid to even think about pruning New Dawn next spring...

In response to message posted by CarolWallace:

We are right on the border between z5 and 6 (supposedly St. Louis city is z6 and we are in the suburbs outside, right on the line as I can tell from the low resolution maps).

It has been somewhat wet here all this spring, but none of the freeze-thaw cycles that we get some years that wreak havoc on the roses. Last year they put out buds and had them frozen to death twice before finally the third time was a charm. My neighbor grows a lot of beautiful but fairly wimpy hybrid tea varieties and was worried about his plants dying. Then about 5 minutes after the final spring freeze, moist, hot air kicked in and we were headed into prime fungal season (much of the year in St. Louis). Fortunately this spring has been much gentler on them.

The New Dawn petals ended up covering the lawn below the wall and my husband raked and bagged them up before mowing, as he says they "mulch wierd.'
Since this is New Dawn's third year, I guess I will have to do a little shaping during the growing season this year and pruning of side shoots and some canes next spring. I am scared to even think about it, as the canes are multilayered and tangled together on the wall with the oldest ones underneath. So I somehow have to reach through to get to those with my bypass pruner and then disentangle them from the newer canes I'm keeping. And New Dawn has those gigantic thorns that can pierce even my leather gauntlet gloves at the seams. With 10 plants, it is going to be quite a project and I'm not sure exactly what to aim for. I've finally gotten fearless dealing with the shrubs, but this is something else altogether. Is there a drawback to just not pruning a rose like New Dawn much, except to remove weak or damaged canes? Any idea what the natural lifespan of these roses is or how much not pruning or lightly pruning affects it? I see pictures in books of ramblers growing up trees, etc. and those must never get pruned up high.

So far all we have done with this the wall o' New Dawn is try to cut back canes that head the wrong way back to a bud eye that is pointing in the right direction and try to keep the plants from taking over the rest of the rose bed (which I think they might do if given free rein). Don't know that I'd mind that too much, but I hope to keep some room for other roses intact.

I'm encouraged to hear that you like training clematis through roses. I've done that on my arbor and it looks great (Dublin Bay with Jackmanii and Nelly Moser/ Coral Dawn with a fuscia clematis whose name I don't know). I was somewhat afraid it might eventually complicate pruning to have the clematic twining around the rose canes. I guess you just take away both together?

-- posted by stlgal