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Questions, Answers and Comments by Category
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Is it bad practice to pinch out roses in the spring. My David Austins are bolting out of the ground and some of them look like they'll be a bit leggy. The sparrows have already nipped a few and it occurred to me that it might encourage a bushier growth. This is their first year BTW
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I remove almost all flower buds from my roses (which are generally young cutting-grown Teas) the first year, to encourage them to make roots and leaves rather than flowers. They generally end up well-covered to ground level. The impact may be less with more advanced budded roses but I don't think it would harm them.
Many Austin roses get much taller in warm climates than in the UK.
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Thank you Margaret, as these are 3 yrs old when sold I'll just pinch the leggy canes then.
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I would say it's bad practice and totally unnecessary to pinch out buds on first year grafted roses, in the UK.. just let them flower and enjoy your roses.. that's what we buy them for... to make them bushier, all you need do is prune them back after they've had the first flush of blooms..
Pinching out buds is best left to own root roses grown from cuttings, that need to develop a good root system.. we don't get those here, unless we've propagated them ourselves...
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Thank you marionena, yes these are all grafted and three years old , well I suppose they are in their 4 year now.
I'm not advocating pinching them out for the whole season, just to promote more stems on those that look 'leggy'. Of course if this does produce new stems then I'll be happy to let them flower. It looks like they are producing double stems beneath the one the sparrows have nipped out. I'll have to find a way to stop the sparrows though, it could get out of hand. I suppose, to a sparrow, the new juicy red shoots look like worms ????.
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Sparrows are feeding off the aphids on your rose buds... unfortunately, along the way, some get broken off, even whole canes can be bent down and broken by sparrows...
Well, of course it's your garden and your roses.. but I gather they are recently planted first year in your garden, regardless of how old they are.. and I can only reiterate that there's just no need to pinch out buds.. it's just not done here.. we prune to shape in winter/early Spring.. and then again after the first flush of blooms... this promotes the bushy growth in DA roses... however, I also advocate light pruning for the first couple of years, and just allow them to develop their own characters.. they are not hybrid teas, but shrub roses..
Sorry to sound a bit dogmatic, I just don't want you to lose your blooms, by doing something you really don't need to be doing.. best wishes, and hope you have a good season..
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Not dogmatic at all, I'm grateful for the advice, I didn't think about the aphids as it's still quite cold here and I haven't seen them yet, hopefully my roses will have filled out before our birds go on the rampage. We've got a few sparrows but lots of various tits.
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I've got stacks of aphids.. they seem to have been around most of the winter too.. I don't spray anything here and just let them get on with it... I'm yet to receive my sparrow invasion but when I do I know I'll lose various buds and stems to their acrobatics...
Just on this issue of pinching out... one plant we should do this with are the group 3 clematis viticella varieties.. they respond dramatically to pinching out their growing tips repeatedly...
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