How do I get my Roses to flower on a particular date??

Hi all - new to this!!

I have a small rose garden of about 20 bush roses in a prominent position in my garden - and they get alot of sun. (I live on acres in the Hawkesbury - Sydney)

I am hosting a surprise party at my house on March 25 and want to do as much as I can (including preying to the rose gods) to have my roses looking their best for the party.

I was thinking about giving them a really good prune next week - of about 50%...

I also need to get a regular spray programme - is the Yates Rose Gun OK?

What do you think. Any advice appreciated

G'Day Adam, and welcome to Rose Talk Australia

I've been doing a little bit of reading about this lately from a new book (old publication) I've recently received called "Roses. A Manual on the Culture, Management, Diseases, Insects, Economics and Breeding of Greenhouse Roses." (1969)

It's an old publication but it still makes interesting reading. In it there is a chapter called Timing, Pruning, and Support. I've scanned it for you to have a read of as a guide.

On spraying, I'll leave that to someone with more experience in that field as I don't tend to spray anything. The only stuff I've used lately is Fongarid which is not, as far as I know, effective against black spot.

I'd like to explain something that they talk about too... they talk about pinching. This is what I would do in your case too instead of a 50% cut back. Whenever you cut back leaves you are cutting back the ability to photosynthesize and this is what drives growth (and in this case, regrowth). Such large cutbacks should be reserved for winter, and even then there is no need to be so drastic. The old 2/3 gone rule is not really relevant or desireable. So have a good look at what they say about pinching and then make sure all the other elements such as food and water are optimal and you should have good results. The other thing to consider is that in these hottest months a lot of roses often go semi-dormant and some even go fully dormant. I would be ensuring a good deep mulching was on hand to keep the roots cool and maybe this dormancy can be avoided, or at least minimised. Coming into March, the weather is starting to cool down a little and roses are beginning to get their autumn flush. This is what I think you are aiming for.

Note also that the above scan is from a book published in the U.S. so their July is their summer.

Hope this helps

Ok Adam, as you have asked for help you will get heaps from our members. Some of my early thoughts are,
1. Hawkesbury, roughly hot/dry
2. Kind of roses in your garden
3. Water availability
4. Are the roses all in 1 bed or spread throughout the garden
5. As Simon has pointed out "pinching" might be the way to go, as you only have 7 weeks to have flowers.
8. Some pictures of the roses, will always help.
9. Email me and I will go thru any other things that might crop up in your mind,
Regards David.

I'm bumping this topic , the previous topics don't show what year.....

so my question is this......above if you are pinching, it takes 8 weeks to a cut of the bloom.......but how long to cut a bloom from a major winter cut....I know weather, water fertilizer, soil and many other things need to come into play....so if I want to get the roses for cutting by 22nd Oct 2011, when do you do the major prune?

Neptune, when do you normally prune ?. Then the next question is how many flushes do you get per season and what length between them. You will have to adjust the timing on what info you give. Also are we talking Ht's and Floribundas ?

last year I pruned the end of august, but talk amongst the other rosiarns is that they will prune more towards the end of July.

My bushes always seem to have flowers on and one of my bankers always have a minimum of 20 buds showing all the time......I have only HT's and Flori's..

Where we are we work on 40 days (60 weeks). We are a bit warmer so it is a bit faster. However, we have never actually got it spot on but the teas have a reasonably long flush period so if we are a bit late/early it does not matter too much.

neptune wrote:last year I pruned the end of august, but talk amongst the other rosiarns is that they will prune more towards the end of July.
With this information, you should be able to remeber when yours flowered

My bushes always seem to have flowers on and one of my bankers always have a minimum of 20 buds showing all the time......I have only HT's and Flori's..

Can you remember the order of flowering, this will also give you some help with the pruning times.
Can you post a picture of one of the Ht's you need for the show.

roseman wrote:Can you remember the order of flowering, this will also give you some help with the pruning times.
Can you post a picture of one of the Ht's you need for the show.

To be honest , I did not write done the order of flowering after the main prune last year....I actually had that on mind and paper to do that, this year....ie: record each flower from major prune to flower

will see to uploading a bush/s for you

last year I pruned the end of august, this is what you have written, so when did they flower ?

I had 80+ rose blooms ready for the october show.....

Some pictures as requested

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

roseman wrote:last year I pruned the end of august, this is what you have written, so when did they flower ?

So Neptune when did they flower from memory, this might help with the timing of your pruning for the big show, Regards roseman.

I can't answer this as I did not keep a record of each flower and I am a newbie at this so this one didn't enter my head at the time.....