ROSE PRUNING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 July 1940, Page 9

ROSE PRUNING

SOME USEFUL HINTS. The rose pruning can be carried out at any time from now onwards in all districts except where there is a danger of late frosts cutting back the young growths. First of all, there are the necessary tools to be considered, and these should consist of a pair of good, stout secateurs, well oiled and sharpened, a strong pruning knife to trim large cuts, a small saw to cut off branches too thick for the secateurs and the old dead or hard wood, a pair of strong leather gloves, preferably of the gauntlet type, a pad to kneel on, and a spade to scrape the dirt off your boots. Before starting, it is necessary to be quite sure of the kind of wood which bears the flowers, and on examination it will be seen that last season’s crop was produced on the young wood of the same season’s growth. We know that next season’s crop of flowers will be formed on the young shoots which spring from resting buds on last season’s young wood, and our main object in pruning is to reduce this wood to a number of resting buds which we can reasonably expect to grow out into flowering shoots. We, therefore, set the plant a task which we can reasonably expect it to perform, and this is the reason for the general instruction to prune a weak grower hard and a strong grower lightly. Though the expert rose grower considers that every plant should be treated in its own special way to get the best results, there are general principles which have to be observed, and by following these even a beginner will obtain good results, and. as he or she becomes more experienced and notes the results from year to year, will gain confidence. Pruning after all is common sense treatment and correct treatment can be reasoned out. In the first place, all dead and decaying and as much of the old wood as possible should be cut out. The decay might spread, and the rough bark of dead branches affords excellent shelter for the resting spores of fungus diseases or the eggs of insect pests. If large branches have to be cut with the saw, the sruface should be smoothed over with the pruning knife, and a coat of tar will keep out

moisture and pests. It is also necessary to thin out the shoots a bit as a rule to allow light and air to get into the centre of the bushes and to render such operations as spraying more effective. Thin twiggy growths and soft unripened ones should also be cut right out. for they are not likely to produce anything except leaves.

Having removed all the undesirable wood, the next thing is to shorten back the young wood to the desirable number of buds. This will be controlled by the strength of the shoots, and the number of flowers we desire. If the roses are grown to produce exhibition blooms when size is important, hard pruning should be practised, but if we are growing our roses for garden decoration, or to provide flowers for house decoration, pruning is not so hard, for we want a larger number of reasonably good blooms. From a strong, well-ripened shoot we can reasonably expect four buds to grow out and flower, whereas a weaker one may only be able to develop one or two. When pruning back, be careful to cut just above a bud pointing away from the centre of the bush, or in the direction in which we desire most growth, for we know that the top bud always, or nearly always, produces the strongest shoot and we want the strongest shoots to grow away from the centre of the bush, and thereby to keep the centre open. Cut about aquarter of an inch above the top bud, and be sure to make a clean, smooth cut. Follow the general rule of cutting the weak growers hard back and the strong growers lightly and you will not go far wrong.

As a rule climbers and ramblers make sufficient young growth to enable us to cut away all the old wood which has flowered and to replace it with clean young growths. Climbers are usually trained on a rustic wall, or board fence, but they can also be pegged down. A number of stout stakes are driven in at intervals round the plant and the young shoots tied down in a more or less horizontal position after removing the unripened tips. This ensures an even distribution of the sap, and every bud will grow out into a. flowering shoot. After pruning, the next operation is to gather up the prunings and old leaves and burn them, returning the

wood ashes to the beds or borders. Give a good dusting of bone dust (three ounces to the square yard), or give a dressing of well-rotted manure (cow if possible), and lightly dig over the beds or borders, scraping away the soil from round the plants and replacing it with clean soil dug from between the plants where there are few roots. The surface can be left fairly rough in the meantime. The next operation is to spray the plants' with lime sulphur (one in twelve), but before doing so the labels should be taken up and laid with the names downwards, for the lime sulphur would stain them. By giving a strong spray now while the plants are at rest, any spores of fungus which may be sticking about will be destroyed. The pruning of the dwarf polyanthus roses, which are now so popular for bedding purposes, is mainly thinning out the thin twiggy growths and shortening back the stronger shoots a little removing all the old flowers.