a rose question and a salvia question

[goldenshoe]

Hello lovely gardening mumsnetters! I need some help making a decision to give up on this rose or cross my fingers for another year...

I planted this Gertrude Jekyll climbing rose as a bare root from David Austin in November 2021. It grew a tiny amount in spring last year but got trampled by the guy painting my house in May-ish, and then only grew about 6-8 inches over summer. I chopped it back in autumn and mulched it well, thinking this was the best thing do it but this year there's just one stem with a very small amount of new growth on it and I'm really unsure if I should just take it up and replace it as it's in quite a prominent position!

I planted 2 other roses in the same bed that have done really well to establish and are both showing lots of new growth this spring so far so I'm sure it's not the location.

And a question about how your verbena bonariensis are doing so far this year? I noticed in winter mine lifted themselves out of the ground a little and I'm worried the weather killed them off as there's no growth on any of them whatsoever! I can't remember when I would usually see growth on them, I'm hoping it's a little later in the year.

Well I like a challenge so I would definitely keep going. I have had roses come back from a worse state than that too.

I would cut the other stems right back, there is one in the middle that looks dead and some of the others look a bit dodgy around the top. Cut the others back to a node, if there's any life in them they will sprout from there.

Get a rose specific plant food and feed it. Feed it again in summer and see what happens. Prepare to tell future admiring visitors how you brought it back from near death!

Builders and decorators always stand on plants - drives me batty! Once lost a wisteria which had just got going and was about to flower and bastard builder cut it 6” from the ground - killed stone dead 😩😩😩

Re verbena bonariensis - usually they pretty much die in the winter for me, but this year, some I grew from seed last year seem to have survived. Some have very small buds showing on existing stems, one seems to have made some new growth from the base.

I think David Austin would replace that rose for you - if you have two others in a similar spot with similar treatment it may just be you got one duff one. The builder standing on it is unlikely to have done any long term damage but the fact it only grew 8" last summer says bad things. Maybe send them a photo of all three and see if they will replace it?

I've lost all my verbena bonarensis this year. They don't like my garden much and this winter was just too much for them.

Thank you for the replies (and for not pointing out the thread title/content mix up, I didn't spot that when I posted!)

I think I'm going to give it another year. I've been out and chopped back all but the one living stem, given it some food and crossed my fingers. There's something telling me that you're not supposed to plant a new rose in an old one's place, and I really want a rose in that spot! I shall also email David Austin and see what they say, hopefully they can at least give some advice.

I think I'll go ahead and order some verbena bonariensis seedlings. My garden is usually a few weeks behind most of the UK, but I'm sure there was a bit of growth by this point last year. I can put them elsewhere if I end up with too many (can you have too many VB??!).

My experience of V.B. is that some winters it come back fine and then suddenly all disappears of you get a particularly cold snap. Definitely a good idea to get some more plants.

Good luck with your Gertrude Jekyll - one of the most lovely roses!

My verbena has only just started to sprout from the base and I'm in the south west so not a cold area. It's a cold late spring compared to previous years.

can you have too many VB??!

I don't think so!

Could the roses be buried a bit too deep? I always have the graft just above the surface, but I have very wet clay soil.

The shoot isn't a sucker from the root stock is it? It's hard to tell with the graft covered by soil.

Verbena bonariensis doesn't come back reliably in my garden, it's too damp. I seem to have two survived this year out of about 12 plants last summer, so will be ordering some more plugs soon.

The rose doesn't look overly happy but it is shooting and should grow more this year. I agree with asking DA to replace it if it didn't do much last year though.

She’ll be able to tell when it comes into leaf. The rootstock usually has more and smaller leaflets

I don't think it's a sucker, I'm fairly sure all those stems have been there since planting.

Previously I've planted my roses with the graft above ground, but I checked before planting these ones and it does say on the David Austin website to have the graft under soil level so I think they're planted correctly.

I've had to move a rose 3 times now due to building works ... 😬

It's showing some promise now as it's been there for a whole year! Trying to keep feeding it regularly

I noticed last night that there's a new stem growing from below ground - possibly a sucker, or could it be just a nice new healthy shoot? There's also new growth on 2 of the healthier looking stems - maybe it will survive!

I thought I'd give a little update on my rose - it's alive!

There's not a huge amount of growth yet, but what's there looks nice and healthy. I was a bit worried it was growing suckers, but research tells me that the new shoots are most likely healthy new stems in waiting😊

My Verbenas are definitely dead. However I have lovely new ones waiting to be planted out this week and also some Salvia Caradonna just to bring this thread together 👌

Woohoo!, Well done OP!
My verbena bonariasis have vanished; I had probably 18 plants around the garden and not one has survived and oddly, no seedlings to be seen anywhere 🙄☹️

Yes, no sign of suckers there