Pruning Your Roses
Pruning will control the size and shape of rose bushes and keep repeat blooming roses blooming all summer.
- Common sense dictates all pruning. Prune your plants in the spring ONLY, NOT in the fall. Use bypass pruning shears and make sure they are clean and sharp. Cut out all dead wood and all twiggy growth. Cut back to live wood just ¼" above an outward facing eye and cut at a 45-degree angle.
- Remove all faded blooms promptly, cutting ¼" above a 5 or 7 leaflet cluster. On first year roses, DO NOT cut long stems. These new roses need all the leaves they can keep to grow strong. Anything growing from BELOW the bud union MUST be removed. These are suckers and are not beneficial.
- Climbing roses and Old-Garden roses generally bloom once per year and should be pruned only AFTER they bloom. It is best NOT to prune climbers for the first 2 to 3 years they are in your garden. This gives you a chance to determine their growth habit.
- In our area, prune your roses only during, or after, the time the forsythias are in bloom.
- Obviously, dead canes may carefully be removed at any time of the year.
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