"Nodding" Roses.

I am thinking of getting a rose for a pot and am really tempted by some highly scented ones, but they seem to have the kind of fully double or even semi double flowers that can be too heavy for the stem, making the flowers droop badly. I think it is called "nodding", when the flowers droop and the stem isn't strong enough to hold them upright or in any graceful form. In the past I even got rid of roses because they kept on producing these drooping flowers and their stems were generally weak and flopping around all over the place. These weren't climbers, and shouldn't have needed to be staked, and it wouldn't have helped anyway. It is so frustrating when you spend a lot of money on a rose, care for it a lot for a couple of years and it never stops flopping all over the place and the flowers drooping. I know not all roses do it, but those that do would be nice otherwise.

Often when I look at photographs of double and even some semi double roses, they look as though the flowers are "nodding". I have read people describing this too, but I can't imagine why otherwise good roses are produced to do this. The only solution seems to avoid all fully double roses, though probably only a small percentage of them will do this.

Also I sent an expensive, supposedly good quality rose, David Austin's "The Poet's Wife" to somebody as a present, and she sent me a photograph of it in September looking extremely floppy. She described it as floppy. The flowers look lovely, and it is otherwise healthy looking, but the floppiness would totally put me off it.

Is there any way to know which roses will do this, to be able to avoid them? Or do I have to stick to single petalled roses with no scent? I don't want to go to the expense, effort and emotional attachment to a rose for this annoying thing to happen again. (Or for that matter to send a rose as a present if it is going to be floppy, the one I sent I thought would be really nice).

 

I've got an Iceberg climbing rose in a pot and it isn't droopy or floppy, you may think of that one.

 

How big is the pot that your Iceberg climbing rose lives in? I was considering a climber as an alternative, though they might need bigger pots. Floppy roses seem so common that I need to think carefully which rose to get.

 

Most of the hybrid tea roses have strong stems. Could try warm wishes scent-sation.

 

Logan, thanks for that suggestion. It does look like a nice rose, good strong scent, strong branches that shouldn't flop, and good disease resistance.

I am considering all options at the moment, but I am not really a pink type and I am not sure about those big double hybrid tea flowers.

I had my heart set on Scarborough Fair (yes I know it is pinkish), but being a rose bred by David Austin it could be bred to "nod", even though it is only semi-double. So I probably won't get that. I was taken by its gorgeous scent and beautiful semi-double flowers.

Some of those flowers look floppy, not sure from a photograph, but I have had too many disappointments because of floppy roses that I won't risk it.

Scarborough Fair

 

Hi Ground beetle,
After reading your blog about'nodding' roses,I thought I would share with you my experience with a DA rose a few years ago....I bought it at one of their stands at the Gardener's world show...it developed the same peculiar growing habit. I did contact them and they said the reason could be that I wasn't pruning hard enough.....hasn't made any difference....I still have to support the growth. The flowers aren't particularly heavy either.

 

I have always thought it was simply due to overzealous breeders trying to produce the most impressively large blooms. The only rose I've grown where this was really a problem was 'Special Anniversary' (Whastiluc), but the beautiful large pink flowers and rich fragrance made the nodding seem like less of a problem. They improved when the rose became established anyway.

rosa special anniversary - Recherche Google

Nick