I do a summer pruning and this usually occurs after the devastation of rose slugs/sawfly larvae. I go back about 1/3 of the growth and they bounce back incredibly fast.
I gave up on David Austin roses years ago and only have Pat Austin right now. I trained it as a climber and it's incredible. It's really the only way I can see the blooms because like most Austin's, they bloom heads are heavy and they 'flop'. PA is the only Austin I've ever had that is completely disease free.(for me, anyway) Every DA rose I ever had got every disease in the book and it just wasn't worth the disappointment and work.
"June Gloom" (which lasted the entire month of July here this year), is like turning off a light switch. Everything for me comes to a screeching hault and stops blooming because there's no adequate sunlight for weeks on end. Very depressing when it's supposed to be 'summer'.
It took me many years to arrive at a decent collection of disease free roses that do well here, and as a result, I have had to settle for only floribunda's . It was a trade off...sacrificing fragrance for color and quantity...but that's ok.
Here is my list of tried and true roses that do exceptionally well in this coastal Ca. climate:
Climbers:
Polka, Dream Weaver, Lemon Meringue,Fuchsia Meidiland (ground cover trained as a climber) Cecile Bruner, Yellow Lady Banks, Sunrise, Iceberg, Colette, Excellenz von Schubert, Dublin Bay, Westerland, and a noid yellow ground cover trained as a climber.
Shrub floribunda's:
John John
LaSevillana
Burgundy Iceberg
Brilliant Pink Iceberg
Gold Marie
Enchanted Evening
Salsa
Brass band
Bill Warriner
Chihuly
Julia Child
Livin Easy
Easy Going (I always get the names of these 2 mixed up)
Dream Orange
Wild Blue Yonder
Sunflare
I don't have hundreds of roses like a lot of you !
