Ok, let’s go back to the narrative about the rebuilding of the rose beds….
Among the tasks on the list for prior to guys showing up to rebuild the beds was pruning back the Cherokee rose in the “herb” bed next to the house (I really need to move this rose to someplace else!) and the Souvenir de la Malmaison in the center bed. Both of these bushes had long cane that would be in the way of the guys rebuilding the beds.
For the Cherokee rose (R. laevigata), the pruning was pretty straight forward; I just cut back the canes so that nothing was within about 1 ft of the edge of the bed. It would have been a good opportunity to try to root some cuttings but I just wasn’t set up to do that so everything went to the city convenience center where there is a yard waste dump when all the stuff gets ground up and composted.
For the Souvenir de la Malmaison, I was pretty aggressive. I needed to get the bush out of the way of the workers but I also took the opportunity to cut out some big canes that were not very healthy, having sustained damage over the years from blowing in the wind and rubbing against other canes. It did mean that the blooms for this summer were significantly reduced but in the long run, the rose should be better for it.