My theology…anything green on the plant is going to help feed it. The more stored food and newly created food, the more foliage it should produce, shading the canes to prevent them from sun burning.
It’s a spring blooming plant, therefore, pruning it now would reduce the flowering you could hope for. You want to prune it at the end of its flowering period. Does the soil in its pot dry out daily? Does it actually NEED daily watering? Only you can answer that.
I’m wondering if it’s receiving sufficient sun? Five hours daily? Mine has always done best when it had as close to full day sun as possible. Currently, in a fifteen gallon can of seriously depleted soil, it receives about eight hours and it is fully leafed and the cleanest it’s EVER been. It hasn’t flowered in nearly two years, but it is growing. I’m not worried about root stock as it went own root years ago. This is the final remaining remnant of the plant I imported from Harkness 25 years ago.
I’d investigate whether it’s remaining too wet, not receiving sufficient sun, and if it’s possible to protect it a bit from the wind which can lead to water stress. Euphrates does perform best, in my experience, when kept warmer. Anything you can do to help it in that regard?
Hi George,
I wonder too if it is too wet?? I have seen that some of my Hulthemia hybrids don’t do as well in wetter soil. They seem more sensitive to soggy conditions as compared to roses.
Jim Sproul
Hi Kim and Hi Jim.
I believe you have both hit the nail on the head troubleshooting this one, I am so glad to have folks like yourselves to be able to ask!
Yes, it is very possible I am overwatering it, that is why I mentioned the watering regime to you, I was myself suspicious of my own watering practices regarding this one!!
I’ll put the darned thing in a car, pot and all, and drive it to a relative’s garden, where it will receive a minimum of 8-10 hours of sun, if not more in summer, here it cannot receive this, as there are walls and buildings all around.
I’ll dry it out starting immediately, and not water it daily. The pot is huge currently for the size of the rootball, so I know it cannot possibly dry out with a watering regime that is not daily, depending on the weather.
Spring is pretty much finished here, and I don’t believe it will flower again for me this season, but even one or two flowers would be great to get one more repeat of Michael’s JTO X Euphrates cross.
So for that to even have a remote chance of happening again, I guess I better get a movin’.
I learned early on when rooting Euphrates, Nigel Hawthorne and Tigris they would root fairly quickly using the same methods and hormone we used for traditional roses. They quickly developed long, deep roots and kept growing quickly IF I put them into more sun than the other young, own root plants and kept them drier. Particularly as young, own root babies, they will drown and turn up their toes to you quickly if too cold and wet. They seem to endure it in winter, but once warmer weather hits, they will thumb their noses at you and turn quickly if their feet are too wet.
Thanks for explaining Kim…better I know now, and learn from this experience, than have never asked and never learned.
Unfortunately, looking at it now, 24 hrs later, I think it is in a rapid decline, I think it is too late for this particular specimen…I should have asked for help sooner.
I’ll take cuttings off it, maybe I’ll get a lucky second chance (I doubt it).
Oh yeah, and on a more positive note…the only JTO X Euphrates cross I did get to do is still very vitally green, and maybe even a fraction plump. …let me see further up this thread when it was I did it…yep it is now 5 weeks old.
By comaprison, every other rose variety I have in the garden that got Euphrates pollen thrown onto its flowers (at roughly the same sort of time frame as JTO), dropped the hips, after about 4 weeks post pollination.
Hi George,
If you are ready to give up on it, you might try pulling it out of the pot to see if there are any viable roots. These could be rinsed off and treated with a fungicide and then plant in clean well aerated soil. Just a thought.
Jim Sproul
Hi Jim. I appreciate your help.
I pulled it out many hours before reading your last posting…otherwie I would have followed your kind advice.
Anyways, just for the sake of letting you know, there were no new thick roots on it, only still the original hard pruned “rootstock broomstick roots” plus several hair like excuses of new root, which were too fine and short to be thought of as alive…I am presuming that the remainder of any white healthy new rootlets (if it ever made such), must have disintegrated.
I broke the rootstock stem to see if there was rotting, and there didn’t seem to be at its mid-section.
I will use the newspaper method for the cuttings, as I don’t have misting set ups (totally “back yard” here LOL).
If they don’t take, which is what will likely happen, I’ll order a new plant this coming winter.
From all of this, I have learned some great things about persica. It has been fun, the set back is part of my learning curve on the persica experience! I am still hoping for that one hip for now!
The JTO X Euphrates hip died.
Better luck next year (if I can be bothered).
Bummer. JTO often sets them with ease, and germination is good, so that is bad news for Euphrates. I still would not rule it out as pollen fertile. It probably has a really low rate though.
I wonder if Euphrates is a triploid? (as if the fact it is a wide inter-species cross isn’t bad enough LOL).
I know its parentage is: (presumed diploid persica X presumed diploid polyantha)…so one woud expect it is also very likely also a diploid…but…
Oh well!
That’s it for me and persica, Euphrates is no longer avaiable this year…!!
Did they say it was just no longer available for this year or is it not being grown any more? If the later I will bud a few up and try and get them established before mine croaks too.
Simon, if I were you, I would be budding a few copies of your Euphrates, for your own back ups. I can see it is a bad rose to expect to thrive in “Australian conditions”. As you know, there are no native rose in Australia, and Euphrates sure hates it here. Supply is definitely out for the 2011 season, which I find strange…maybe someone smart did some mass purchase, in any case folk like me are now left high and dry…maybe this is a blessing too…after all even if I got a Euphrates hybrid by the time I get to 99 years of age, it might be near-sterile like its parent.
They did not say it was gone forever, but 2012 is too far away for me to care about.
As a result of this latest boring Euphrates story, I have also posted on HMF if anyone there can send me OP from their Eyes For You plants. Hopefully someone there can get us out of the “persica dark ages” we are in. Simon if I can get such hybrid seed, I will definitely share it with you.
Cool, thanks. Likewise 
I think I’ll bud a few ‘Euphrates’ plants up tomorrow. Does anyone know if there are any understock incompatibilities with perisica hybrids like ‘Euphrates’? I have multiflora seedlings, Dr Huey, and Indica Major understocks growing and ready to use.