Did you know: Roses can suffer from sunburn?

I didn't know this, either! Until the day, last summer, that a Client asked me what was wrong with her Rose, was it dying, because half of it was brown.

I went to have a look, assuming she meant that half the plant was brown - but no, it was the individual stems, which were healthily green on one side, but brown on the other. 

Here is a sequence of three photos of the same stem, I am slowly twirling it:

First, the sunburned side:

Second, half rotated, showing how the dark patch has a clearly defined edge, along the mid-point of the stem:

And here is the "back" side of the shoot, clean and green.

I had to research this, as I'd never heard of it before, but yes, sunburn is a "thing" on roses.

Usually, it occurs where pruning has revealed some previously-sheltered stems, and - like us - if they are not gradually exposed to more sun, they will burn! 

It doesn't seem to harm them, though: this particular rose just kept on growing as though nothing had happened, and flowered in the normal way. Well, not this particular stem, of course, because I cut it off in order to bring it home and take photos of it, ha ha, ... but the rest of the plant was fine.

There is no need to take any particular action, in the hopes of avoiding this phenomenon: just continue to prune your roses as you normally do. 

And I've written about pruning roses plenty of times, so I won't repeat it all here - just type "rose pruning" into the search box, top left of the page, and take your pick!

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