RNRS Pruning Trials\u2014Important
\nCorrections<\/em> to my Report<\/strong><\/p>\n

In our December newsletter I reported on the trials
\nof the Royal National Rose Society where the results of three
\nmethods of pruning roses were studied. It was brought gently to my
\nattention by friends in England that I didn\u2019t quite get it right. I
\noffer most humble apologies, particularly to those who may have felt
\njustified in never pruning their roses.<\/p>\n

RNRS Pruning Trials<\/strong><\/p>\n

The error in my report had to do with the third
\npruning method, which I characterized as a group that was NOT
\npruned. In fact this group of roses WAS pruned in a fashion
\ndescribed as \u2018rough pruning.\u2019 The roses in these blocks were in fact
\ncut back roughly, by hand pruning to shorten the plants. They were
\nnot thinned, no deadwood was removed, and the cuts were made without regard to the location of growth buds, or to the angle of the cuts.<\/p>\n

Both the \u2018rough pruned\u2019 and hedge-trimmer pruned roses scored higher in
\nthe initial evaluations than the roses pruned in the traditional method, where plants were thinned, and opened up in the centers. In particular it was noted that these two groups resulted in plants
\nthat produced \u2018stronger growth\u2026and in many cases, better flowering
\nperformance than traditional pruning.<\/p>\n

Restrained Pruning<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have received many letters from those of you who
\nagree with my notion that leaving plants un-pruned gives them a
\nbetter chance to develop naturally and more strongly than roses that
\nare regularly thinned and diminished in size. This notion is one
\nthat I have arrived at after many, many years of growing thousands
\nof rose cultivars. It first occurred to me when I observed untended
\nroses in cemeteries that had not been pruned. Those plants thrived
\nwith little or no care, no summer water, and often seemed to
\noutshine most of my own carefully controlled plants.<\/p>\n

In the mid-1990s I began leaving sections of my own
\ngarden un-pruned every second year. The plants spent this two year
\nperiod bulking up, filling in, and the bloom display in the second
\nyear after pruning was always more spectacular. I have continued to
\napply this treatment to most of the Old European roses, the
\nBourbons, HPs, Noisettes, Teas and Chinas, which have room to grow
\nin their plantings. Because I have crowded the HTs and Floribundas
\nin the traditional beds they occupy in my garden, I find it
\nnecessary to prune them yearly in order to prevent more vigorous
\nvarieties from swamping and setting back weaker, slower growers. I
\ncontinue to be convinced that our major purpose for pruning is to
\nsize down plants. I believe that the traditional justifications for
\npruning that suggest this intervention helps the plants, making them
\nbetter bloomers and healthier plants, is baseless.<\/p>\n

Sizing down plants is not however a misguided
\nactivity. Usually we plant a rose with only a vague idea of how big
\nit will get. And many roses, particularly in our mild climate in
\nCalifornia, achieve dimensions that are difficult to provide for,
\nespecially in a small garden. At the Chambersville Rose Garden in
\nTexas, which the Heritage Rose Foundation has proclaimed as a study
\nplot for old roses that thrive in the North Texas climate, Teas and
\nChinas have been planted with ample room to grow to their full
\npotential. Each year that they increase in size they grow more
\nvigorously and bloom more profusely.<\/p>\n

The Art of Pruning\u2014the Art of Gardening<\/strong><\/p>\n

But not all gardens can spread over acres to give
\nroses their full spread. Gardens like Mottisfont Abbey in England
\nhave been planted in much more compact conditions. Graham Thomas\u2019
\ndesign for Mottisfont intended for the old shrub roses to grow large
\nand full, making stolid shrubs and arching fountains. Yet,
\nmaintaining the balance between the competing inhabitants of this
\ngarden, roses and perennials alike, calls for a careful management
\nof the plants, and pruning is an integral part of that. Gardeners
\nwho have an opportunity to manage such plantings learn a great deal
\nabout each plant, its needs, its tolerance of pruning and what sort
\nof pruning it requires. The skill and accumulated knowledge that
\nthey apply results in a garden that, in full bloom, appears rich and
\nfull, blowsy and carefree, as though the plants are scarcely
\ntouched.<\/p>\n

We prune roses to control their size, but more
\nimportantly we control their size as a sculptor trims and models her
\nclay. A garden is a vision that exists in our minds. We work
\ntirelessly to reveal that vision in three dimensions, with all of
\nthe unpredictability of the living things that are our clay and
\npaints. We may never arrive at the moment that our creation matches
\nour vision, but even if that moment arrives it is gone the next
\nmoment, never to return. That is the art of gardening, and pruning,
\nfor better or worse, is one of those techniques we strive to master
\nfor the sake of our art.<\/p>\n

Beware the Easy Fix<\/strong><\/p>\n

Leaving your roses un-pruned may or may not achieve the beauty you seek in your garden creation. Trimming with hedge-trimmers may or may not decrease your work in the rose garden. Jon Dodson of Mottisfont Abbey recently shared with me a letter from the August 2007 issue of\u00a0 The Garden, Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society,<\/em> written by David Bartlett, who had worked at the RNRS gardens on the pruning trials in the 1990s. He was addressing an article by Charles Quest-Ritson in the March issue in which Quest-Ritson asserted that \u2018a rough clip with hedge-trimmers gives better results than traditional pruning methods.\u2019 Bartlett takes issue with the reported results of the trials\u2014he himself had both pruned and gathered observational data\u2014and notably says that the hedge-trimmer pruning took longer; \u2018\u2026it took a great deal of back-breaking labour to clear up the cuttings.\u2019 One can easily imagine trying to disentangle the pruned tips that had fallen head first into the plants, thorns locked to thorns. He also indicates that the hedge-pruned roses developed more disease in subsequent years and that the disease spread to all of the roses\u2014the result, weakened plants that had eventually all to be removed and replaced.<\/p>\n

At the Huntington Gardens in California a new trial
\nhas just been announced by rose curator Clair Martin; \u2018we are using
\npower hedge shears on the large beds of shrub roses like the yellow
\n‘Sun Flare’ in front of the Rose Garden Tea Room\u2026\u2019 With
\ncharacteristic humor, Clair suggests that you may think he\u2019s lost
\nhis mind! His hope is that this will speed the process and produce
\nimproved bloom. \u00a0We still have much to learn, though I hope that my errors of reporting have not brought on an experiment that may be fraught with ills.<\/p>\n

-Gregg Lowery<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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