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Gardening

Rose bush - can I cut back now? Flower balling

(6 Posts)
namo Tue 06-Jul-21 17:46:06

The rose bush was in garden when I moved here so not sure what it is. Big round pink ball shaped roses. As they bloom they’re going brown. On RHS website it says this is ‘flower balling’ and they need removing straight away. It’s a huge bush and it would take ages to cut off each flower, so does anyone know please if it would be okay to cut the branches back, like pruning, which would be quicker and easier.

25Avalon Tue 06-Jul-21 17:49:30

If you just cut where the multiple heads join the main stem which will be about 6” it should be fine.

3dognight Tue 06-Jul-21 17:55:09

You will not hurt it in the long run by pruning. It sounds like an ‘old’ rose to me, and the flowers may be getting soggy from rain, rotting and not being able to open.

You may find it puts on a spurt of new growth rafter a prune and a feed!

Enjoy you’re lovely ?

Katie59 Tue 06-Jul-21 18:12:26

Late frosts and too much rain, possibly a lot of aphids, cut it back as you would “deadhead” to a new bud and it will flower again in September. Watch for aphids too many will ruin buds, spray with Roseclear, in winter cut it back to about half its size, it sounds brutal but established roses are tough.

foxie48 Tue 06-Jul-21 18:20:42

I love roses, particularly the old fashioned ones. I've found they respond to hard pruning if for whatever reason they are failing to flower well and a good feed certainly helps them too. I've got a similar problem with one of my roses, it's this weather I think so I've been ruthless and chopped all the balled buds off even though it made me quite sad!

Fennel Tue 06-Jul-21 19:05:27

Same here, The turning brown I think is partly due to the heavy rain we've had recently.
My roses mostly have small clusters of buds. So I just cut off those which are brown. And the few which still have a nice flower I cut and put in a vase in the house.