Pruning and Dieback.

I wonder. Have you noticed in videos etc how pruning roses varies. I still practice the method I learned years ago. Cut at a slant with the lower end of the cut being about opposite a prospective new bud.

Nowadays I find that even rose nurseries etc, simply cut straight across the stem. Now this brings me to another point. OK. You visit the garden center and choose a potted rose. More than likely it has been cut back. Here you have a rose bush in a pot cit back to say six inches high. In no time at all, you notice new growth. Gradually growth increases but hey! what's wrong with those two shoots. Obviously the remaining evidence shows that from the budding stage. This rose has grown, now you have a plant with some new growth and oops! stone dead twigs.

OK please. I do happen to know about various diseases etc that afflict plants. I have the whatever as being a plant pathologist. IMHO I think, believe that many cases of this kind of die back is due solely to hap-hazzard cutting back. Don't worry says the guy with the sec's in hand. Just chop it off. Who cares. The Garden center gives a three/five year warranty.

 

@Mike Allen I will admit when cutting my roses on thicker stems I cut across but one thinner stems I slant my cutters why god knows

Don't mention garden centre roses to me in total I brought 6 and out the 6 only 2 was any good

 

Hey my friend. Greenwich park. I did most of my courting in there. I'm going back to the late 50's early 60's. I knew the park Supt, Bob Hare very well. He later became the Queen's gardener. His predecessor S.M Gault I became friends with at Regents park. He was considered by many as being an odd so & so but I got on with him. He was a great Rosarian along with Patrick Synge. It was Gault who nominated me for Fellowship of the RHS. Now anyone can join. Back to Greenwich park. 50's and 60's sadly the park wasn't used all that much. The then flower gardens were really something. I always admired the Cedar of Lebannon that sat in the centre. Now it seems the supply and planting is done by contractors. The rose garden of that era were to the left of the Blackheath gate. I remember watching gardening staff digging out a new rose bed. I really thought at first they might be digging a grave, they must have gone down six feet. A recent visit to the park and the rose garden is a patch in front of the Rangers House and if I was the park Super I'd rip the lot out and grass it over. The main avenue has now been closed to through traffic. Yes more folk seem to enjoy the park so much more. Just inside the Blackheath gate now stands a Met police station, as now the Royal Parks Police have been absorbed into the Met. IMHO not a good idea. Bye the bye. Did you know that at the end of the Surperintendants garden there was a 25yd shooting range. I spent many an hour on there. Hope to hear from you soon. Now put that chainsaw away. LOL.