Cut the buds off rose of sharon now in Zone 5?

[Karen]

The rose of sharon in my garden had a beatiful display of flowers in the late summer. Now there are hundreds of new buds forming in our cold zone 5!!! I doubt it can come to flower in time before the weather turns nasty. Should I pinch off the bud to save its energy to prepair for winter? Or it doesn't hurt to leave them alone in case they can bloom?

They are 4 years old, 6' tall and very healthy. Thy are located near the house in a protected spot from wind. The weather is 5C high and 0C low (40F and 32F)

Thanks.

[Mark Anderson]

They won't bloom again this year. I always trim back the rose of sharon every fall about this time (I'm in zone 5 too). Last year I experimented and didn't trim hoping they would grow higher and it didn't work. For some reason they were having problems getting leaves in the spring forcing me to do an emergency trim. The buds were all dried up at the ends and no leaves would form less then 4" from the buds. Therefore, this year I'm clipping the ends with the buds in fall.

I saw one rose of sharon in my neighborhood that looked like it was 20 or more years old and the people who lived there didn't trim it last year and the entire thing was dead this spring. I'm not sure if the lack of trimming was the reason but these plants do die suddenly and trimming them in fall makes them seem a lot perkier in the spring.

[Phisherman]

Sounds strange. The leaves of my ROS are now turning yellow and falling off, typical at this time of year. We have not had a good frost yet. Perhaps they were recently fed? ROS bloom from the current year growth, not last year. This is a good time to cut them back for bushy, sturdy growth and more flowers for next year. You can cut them back to 3 or 4 feet tall.

[Mommy Bartlo]

Here in Mount Poocono the roses are still blooming nicely. If I could find a girl for my son JoJo I'd be glad to have him give her the roses but he doesn't seem very interested in girls.

he's in his 40's and still lives with me.

xoxoxo

--MommyBartlo--

[Joseph Bartlo]

No one care about JoJo, pest.

[Tyra Trevellyn]

I think that what you're seeing are the seed pods and not new flower buds. The seed pods look like buds, certainly. Since rose-of-sharon can be quite weedy, you might want to cut off the pods now. (I've just done this around my property.....I wish I'd kept up with this in recent years, for sure.)

Best, Tyra nNJ usa z7

[Jim Shaffer, Jr.]

Are you sure they're not seed pods? I've never seen one bloom twice, and we've had warmer autumns than this.