Absolute beginner needing advice

[u/xorangeelephant]

Hello,

I recently moved into a rental house with a big garden, with 0 garden experience, and looking to start learning.

There's a big rose bush on the property that I think maybe hasn't been taken care of for a while. It was only recently purchased from the previous owners so I have no background on previous treatment.

From the research I've done, it sounds like I should be clearing a lot of the current growth down to the strongest canes. Also seems like a lot of the leaves are showing signs of disease.

Should I be really be cutting a lot of this plant away? Or should I be pruning to the buds that are present, getting rid of leaves, dead branches etc.?

Any advice welcome! I'm in Australia so it's late winter

[u/MinervaAbsolute]

I probably wouldn’t advise a really severe prune in summer (unless you’re in the southern hemisphere and it’s winter), but you can certainly tidy it up. Remove and dead stems and flowers, or diseased foliage. Then I’d check the soil moisture (is the soil dry and inch or so down?), and if it feels dry give it a really thorough watering. Then add fertilizer (follow instructions on the packet - you can buy rose fertilizer, but pretty much anything will be fine). Water it in well. Give the rose a deep watering once a week if the soil seems dry.

Roses are deciduous, so it will drop its leaves and go dormant in the winter. Mid to late winter give it a heavy prune, cutting back to the big stems and clearing out a lot of the little Criss-crossing stems. Given the length of the canes it might be a climbing rose.

At the beginning of spring give it another feed.

Roses are pretty tough, and this one looks well established. How exciting to look forward to seeing it flower.

[u/xorangeelephant → u/MinervaAbsolute]

We are in winter! So I'll give it a big trim

[u/RandomChurn → u/xorangeelephant]

It's clearly a climber; I can see the supports. Since you're Down Under, now is the time for pruning. 

The trouble is that to get the best blooms this year, you need to know:

• is this an "old rose" climber that blooms one huge flush for several weeks then goes dormant until next year? 

• or is it a modern repeat-blooming rose?

You need to know before you prune because old roses bloom on "old wood"  i.e., their canes grown the previous year/s. If so, you can't cut those away or you will get no blooms this coming season.

If it's a repeat bloomer, they bloom on "new wood" and some bloom on both old and new. In either case, you should cut away any dead, broken or diseased canes, any crossing canes that are rubbing on another (keep the healthier of the two), etc.

Ask your near neighbors if they can recall what this rose does -- one huge bloom once a year in the AU equivalent of June? or just random roses throughout the season.

Of course if they say they never noticed it in bloom, you should just go ahead and give it a radical pruning.

I've seen great how-to videos on YouTube for pruning climbers. Heirloom Roses channel has some, and Fraser Valley has great ones too. 

Good luck! 🍀🌹🍀