Question
I live in Independence, Ky about 20 mi from Cincinnati, Ohio.  I have a climbing Peace rose in front of my home it is apprx 5-6 yrs old. It has not bloomed for aprx 3-4 yrs. Why?...also it has one main stem that has grown about 15 ft tall & over the house..how and when can I cut this back?  ..also what do you recommend for black spot?
Thank you for your help.
Sincerely,
Betty

Answer
Betty, that old gardener's saying "Better Late Than Never" doesn't apply here - it would be better if you had written to me 6 months ago and I could have steered you thru the season.  I know... you were hoping for the best.  The glass was half full.  At this end, tho, life is short, we don't know what the future holds, and we can't stop and smell the Roses if they're not blooming.

I'll address all your questions today.  But Betty, please, when spring returns next year, it will be time to deal with each of these problems right away.  The biggest bloom week for Roses is the first week in June; the rest is an afterthought, so you want to build up for Rose Week and you have to begin early in the spring.

Let's begin.

1.  Why has Climbing Peace not bloomed?

Roses need TONS of sunshine.

Without a solid full day of sun, these roses will sulk.

You can water and feed and talk to them, Betty.  But if you don't give them all the sun they need, there will never be blooms on those rosebushes.

If your Climbing Peace is planted under the shade of a tree and gets some basic light, it won't bloom.

If it is in sun half the day and light shade the other half, you might see a little bloom here and there. If you are very lucky.

Roses need SUN SUN SUN.  You can't give them too much light.

OK, let's suppose you do have your little rose bush in a bright sunny position at the center of a garden.  And there are no blooms.

Another thing roses need is to be fed.  There are special fertilizers labelled "rose food" because these roses have special diets.

Most flowering shrubs are perfectly happy with a fertilizer that is high in Phosphorous.  These are fertilizers with the N-P-K label and the middle number, the P, is the biggest.  (N stands for Nitrogen. P stands for Phosphorous. K stands for Potassium.)  

We usually push the middle number as high as we can to get the most flowers.  And that usually works.

But with Roses, you need more.  Roses need a LOT of Nitrogen in addition to Phosphorous.  Because they need a lot of LEAVES to make a Rose.

Feed your Peace with any special Rose fertilizer.  Preferably one that is a slow-release -- the kind with pellets that you only apply once and the pellets slowly dissolve for two or three months.  Follow these instructions, and I guarantee that your Rose bush will bloom.

Unless, of course, you prune wrong.

2.  How and when should you prune Climbing Peace?

You're smart to be cautious with the pruning shears, Betty.  Some people just run out and chop, chop, chop - and delay bloom, or stimulate the wrong growth, or stress their shrubs for no reason at all.

For the sake of shortening this reply, which is already going to be book length as it is, I refer you to the Rose Pruning website posted by the agricultural mavens at University of Nebraska (hortparadise.unl.edu/Newsrelease/News/PruningClimbingRoses.htm), which warns specifically about pruning climbing sports of teas and other bush-form roses like your Climbing Peace: "These roses should not be pruned back heavily within the first two or three years after planting, or they may revert to the bush growth form."  

I have to point out that there are rosarians out there who maintain you should NEVER prune a climbing sport heavily.

Yet others, such as Danny Weaver, a consulting rosarian for the Northeast Georgia Rose Society (www.ces.uga.edu/extonly/TT-may97.html), insist: "The secret to maintaining large flowered climbers is to prune, prune, prune."  Weaver uses Climbing Peace as an example of what will happen to one of these teas without the disciplined cuts: "Two years later they have a huge mass of tangled canes and not much bloom."  Many experts agree that climbers that were originally teas re-bloom with less vigor than true climbers.  For best results, follow Weaver's detailed, step by step instructions on training and selective pruning.  If you have any trouble, please send a separate question, limited to that one topic, so that we don't have a printout 3 miles 100,000 Gigabytes long to followup.  I'll be happy to guide you on the who what where why and WHEN.  Which will NOT be any time this year!

2.  What can you do about Blackspot?

Ah, yes, Out, out damn blackspot!  Hybrid teas are unfortunately blackspot-prone.  Sooner or later, EVERY gardener has to deal with it.

You can treat blackspot.  But despite fungicide claims to the contrary, THERE IS NO CURE... yet.

Blackspot is caused by a tiny, two-celled fungus that attacks healthy, green leaves on Roses, Peaonies and other beautiful flowers.  You'll find a photo of this fungus, Diplocarpon rosae, at the University of Nebraska Plant Pathology Department website (www.ianr.unl.edu/nu-distance/socrates/disease/Hort/Rose.html).

Popular rumor has it that a few handfuls of cornmeal, applied at the base of all your roses early in the spring and again every 3 or 4 weeks, may control Blackspot.  Note that the cornmeal DOES NOT get applied to the leaves.

I don't follow the scientific mechanism as to why this would work.  But early reports say it is highly effective.

Betty, if you don't have a good sprayer yet, you might find one on sale between now and January.  This is one tool that will be your best friend in years to come.  Get one now to save $$ and so you can make sure you have it when you need it.  Because starting a spray program early in the season is the ONLY way to attack blackspot.

The secret to successful blackspot spraying is to make sure you reach the ALL THE LEAF UNDERSIDES.

For now, the best thing you can do is eliminate ALL dropped leaves and diseased stems.  Use gloves to avoid spreading blackspot spores.  I can't emphasize this enough.  It's not just housekeeping you're doing; each dropped leaf, each diseased stem, has HUNDREDS of spores ready to settle in for the winter and wait for spring.

At the same time, you don't want to remove any damaged leaves that are still on the rosebush.  It makes no difference as far as the blackspot, and your roses will weaken with removal of even semi-healthy foliage.

After sprinkling Corn Meal around the base, you can take your sprayer next spring and cover the leaves with Blackspot spray:  3 teaspoons Baking Soda mixed in a bucket of water with 1 Tablespoon of dish detergent.

Don't wait for signs of Blackspot.  You should be spraying HEALTHY GREEN LEAVES.  Assume you will get blackspot in the garden, and spray all susceptible perennials and annuals with this EVERY WEEKEND through the summer.

There are variations of Blackspot Fungus Spray.  Some mix 2 Parts Fat Free Milk and 2 Parts Water.  Some spray 1 teaspoon of Baking Soda with one quart of water for the entire month of June, then a little less frequently the rest of the summer.  One elaborate homemade Blackspot remedy mixes one Gallon of the basic Baking Soda + Detergent recipe above, and adds 1 Tbs. fish emulsion, seaweed, Vitamin B1 and molasses.

You can buy some good remedies at your garden center or on the internet.  Rose Flora (www.better-flora.com) sells a proprietary blackspot formula; Agorganics (www.agorganics.com/index) sells a line of organic herbicides, pesticides and fungicides; and the famous Safer line makes little bottles of Rose spray.

Back up your spray program with diligent care.  Keep the leaves dry.  Don't sprinkle accidentally as you water in the heat of summer.  The planting location is also helpful; dew evaporates from leaves quicker on Roses with Southern and Eastern exposures.

A word of warning:  There are thousands of well meaning gardeners who swear by their favorite fungicides for Blackspot.  

IGNORE THEM.

In 10 or 20 years, maybe sooner, they'll be treating themselves and the whole family for all kinds of cancer and weird diseases.

Take the chemical Daconil (active ingredient: chlorothalonil, referred to by scientists as 2,4,5,6-tetrachloroisophthalonitrile), a favorite fungicide of Rose-lovers made by Ortho and widely used on Long Island Golf Courses.  This chemical is on the N.J. Health Dept's Hazardous Substance Fact Sheet (www.state.nj.us/health) as a KNOWN CARCINOGEN.  One study made public (www.chem-tox.com/pesticides/pesticidereport.htm) lists just a handful of the devastating side effects known -- and rarely
reported.

But can you blame them?  Ortho & Friends spend A LOT of money on newspaper advertising.  They would not be pleased with any newspaper that made a fuss about the bad things these products do to you and your family, your pets, and the people who live nearby.

I hope to hear from you again in the spring, Betty, when it is time to get this show on the road.  Meanwhile, make sure you put a fancy sprayer on your Christmas list and maybe Santa will drop one thru the chimney.  I'll put in a special word for you.

Thanks for writing!