I've always had a soft spot for my Rosa 'Shropshire Lass' ever since I rescued it as nothing more than a stick with a few miserable roots at one end and a couple of leaves at the other, languishing in a bargain bin on a late Spring Launceston street about 20 years ago. I could find out nothing about it at the time other than it was a David Austin rose so, in my ignorance, I planted it in the corner of a new garden bed I had created. Gradually it thrived and by year 2 it produced its first flush of large single blushed flowers hovering over the bush like scented butterflies. I knew by now that she flowered only once but I still didn't know that she was not a bush but a large shrub - and a wickedly thorned one at that.
And so it proved. She began to throw out long trailing arms, ensnaring the unwary visitor and as, at the time, I was a participant in the Open Gardens Scheme, something would have to be done. So Fer kindly helped me dig it out and we moved it to a choice new spot in the middle of a new bed where she could grow and flower unhindered. We had to cut her back of course and for two years she was very ugly and stunted and produced only one or two butterflies. Then she took off and she has been a miracle every November/December producing a breathtaking display.
Then this winter I looked at what she had become ...
She was overwhelming, choked and tangled, full of dead and spindly wood, and smothering everything around her. No more pussy-footing around - it was time to prune!
I know you're supposed to prune once-flowering roses after they've flowered but in this position everything else is growing around it and it's just too difficult to get at it so it has had to be now. It has taken me two days - agonisingly prickly days - but at last it's complete - and what a transformation!
She's had her revenge. I'm covered with scratches and embedded rose thorns and I have a bloodshot eye where she poked me in the corner with one of her freshly pruned stems. But I know she'll forgive me and the butterflies will fly again in early Summer.
3 comments:
Oh no, I wish I could've been there to help you again!
So should I be pruning Rosa Gallica Complicata after she flowers too? She does have beautiful big red hips though, and are a pretty sight in winter.
:o)
You really only need to take out any dead branches or any shoots that have lost their vigour. You can cut off the old hips next spring or whenever you want to. Beautiful hips are part of the value of a rose.
That is true. I only pruned it the other day but was in a bit of a rush (or just getting knackered!) to take off all the hips - there were so many! I'll have to go back and finish it soon.
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