How and when to prune roses is a thorny problem that concerns many people. Indeed it was the topic that was the real start to my offering bespoke Plews Gardening Lessons rather than just teaching at college.
I’ll tell you the tale of the backstory another time as you may have a rose in dire need of pruning and want to get to the crucial part of what to do. And I’d like to help you with that.
What Type of Rose is it?
To begin, it may sound obvious, but knowing what type of rose you have means that you’re more likely to get the pruning right. By this I mean whether your rose plant is: –
- Rambler, rambling rose
- climbing rose
- hybrid tea, HT rose
- floribunda rose
- shrub rose
- bush rose
- miniature, dwarf or patio rose
- polyantha rose
- groundcover rose
- standard rose, those with a clear stem and a ‘ball’ of flowers and foliage at the top
And if you don’t know what type of rose you have, don’t panic! Theres a brief description under the headings – and a section for unknown roses too.
Bush Roses and Shrub Roses – a quick explanation
These names are used as generic terms to describe a range of other rose types as listed above. But they can also refer to specific rose types, or rather certain rose types belong to either the bush or shrub description. Shrub roses tend to be older varieties although there are modern ones too. Whereas bush roses are usually modern varieties and are often smaller in size than shrub roses.
A note about rose hips
These are effectively berries containing rose seeds. Almost all roses have the ability to set hips, although not all do and some are showier than others. It sounds obvious, but roses which carry hips over the winter shouldn’t be pruned between late summer and spring. This way you can enjoy the decorative hips and / or leave them for the wildlife to eat.
How and When to Prune Roses – General pruning tips
Non rose specific tips include not pruning when its frosty and making sure your tools are sharp and clean. Bypass secateurs and loppers are those garden hand tools that you’ll find most useful as general pruning tools.
- Remember deadheading flowers is a form of pruning
- Take a long look at the rose before pruning
- Always remove dead, diseased or dying shoots first
- Stand back and look again – and repeat during the pruning process
- Cut neatly to just above (about ¼”) visible buds or old leaf scars from which buds will appear
- Make a clean cut on the diagonal, as if you’re directing water away from the bud
Pruning is generally carried out between late autumn and late winter / early spring. Basically when the rose is dormant and leafless.
Deadheading is carried out when the rose is flowering to encourage more blooms and to remove rain damaged or diseased flowers.
Removal of dead and diseased shoots may be carried out at any time, ie when needed.
A Note on Restorative Pruning and Renovating Roses
This subject really needs a blog to itself – or a gardening lesson! This is because one of the first things you have to ask yourself is: “Is this rose worth keeping?”
And that is often best answered by considering whether you can be bothered to take 3 years to bring the rose back to health and flowering. If the answer is yes, then take a long hard look at the rose to see what its doing. For example: is it a rambler with a few roses about 8 foot high on waving stems? Or a bush rose with a woody main stem and leaves but no flowers plus yellow flowers coming from the one green stem at the base? These scenarios require different methods of restoration, although the skills are the same as for any pruning.
For some types of rose, you can cut hard back all at once rather than spread out the renovation. In others that approach will just kill them.
I will come back to this topic…
How and When to Prune Roses – Climbers and Ramblers
The difference between a climbing rose and a rambler, generally speaking, is that climbers generally repeat flower, often from June until the first frosts; whilst ramblers flower early in the summer, then send out lots of new leafy growth and develop rose hips. Because of this, and the ways in which they grow, they need different pruning techniques.
Rambling rose
Ramblers don’t generally need much pruning, but it is an idea to remove some of the oldest shoots on an annual or biennial pruning ‘regime’. If you want the rose hips, leave your pruning until late winter or even early spring.
How to prune a rambling rose –
The older stems can be taken down virtually to the base, or graft, so on average about 6″ / 15 cm up from there. You will need to train and tie in the new leafy growth as the rose will flower best on this the following year.
Climbing rose
Climbers given annual pruning will give you more blooms as the rose flowers best on younger growth.
How to prune a climbing rose –
It is a good idea to cut one or more of the older stems down virtually to the base, or graft, on a rolling basis. Then prune any side shoots back by about 2/3 of their length to a strong bud.
How and When to Prune Roses – Bush roses including Hybrid Tea, Floribunda
Left unpruned, bush roses can become a tangled mess of branches with very few flowers. The difference between them is that hybrid tea roses have large flowers, often one per stem, whilst floribundas have clusters of flowers.
How to prune a bush rose
Cut to buds on the outside of the stem to encourage a goblet shape.
Prune hybrid tea roses by about half, or to 4- 6 buds from the base. The younger growth produces better flowers. However, floribunda roses should be pruned less hard, to about a foot from the base.
How and When to Prune Roses – Shrub roses including single and repeat flowering types
Does your shrub rose has one flush of flowers or is it a repeat flowering rose? NB With many of these roses, it’s important to maintain the arching shape of their stems as that’s part of their beauty.
How to prune a shrub rose
Those that flower only once are best pruned only lightly, after flowering, to where you can see new growth. They can be pruned again in the winter to remove the oldest stems which produce fewer flowers.
Repeat flowering shrub roses are the modern varieties and can be pruned from late autumn to early spring. Reduce healthy main stems by about a quarter, in the autumn, and again in spring; or remove a third in spring with no autumn pruning.
How and When to Prune Roses – Patio roses, ground cover roses
Ground cover roses are generally pruned in spring, as the aim is to reduce congestion and stimulate new growth on old plants.
However, miniature and patio roses only need pruning to maintain an attractive shape; so if they’re okay, you needn’t get out the secateurs!
How and When to Prune Roses – Standard roses
These roses are so called as they have been pruned to a particular shape, in this instance a tall single stem with a globe of flowers at the top. It’s a style often seen in parks and formal rose gardens.
How to prune a standard rose –
You pretend that the “standard” part, the stem, is not there. This is the root stock and is usually a straight stemmed rugosa or briar rose (both of which are species roses). Instead imagine that where the join is (usually a knobbly bit on the stem) is at ground level and only prune the rose plant above.
The aim is to reduce the branched “head” by about half – or even more – to make it into a balanced candelabra shape, cutting out obviously dead branches and removing any damaged or skinny stems and those that cross the middle of the bush, thus spoiling the candelabra.
How and When to Prune Roses – Unknown roses
Firstly ascertain if it’s a climber or rambler type or a bush / shrub type of rose. (See above descriptions).
If you think it’s a climber or rambler but not sure which, then either –
- Prune out one or two of the oldest looking stems as to as near to the ground as you can.
- Or where there’s only one thick stem, cut back to 3 -5 buds above where the stem changes from green to old grey bark.
With a bush type rose, is it a small plant? If so follow the patio rose tips. A larger rose might be hybrid tea, floribunda, species or shrub. Look to see if there are there any hips on the plant.
But if in doubt, prune one or two stems as close to ground level as you can, or to younger looking green barked side stems as low down as you can.
And finally
Hopefully I’ve covered the more pressing issues for how and when to prune roses in your garden and now all you need to do is check your secateurs are sharp! But if you still have any concerns do please get in touch. I do offer one-off lessons on rose pruning (link to info PDF is below) And, depending on when you’re reading this, there’s a workshop in my own garden in Kent for general pruning of shrub and climbing roses, plus how to renovate a rose that hasn’t been touched for years. If you’re part of a group that would like a talk and demo on rose pruning at you meeting place, I do that too. Details for these are on the website under lessons and talks tabs.
Alternatively, if you haven’t any roses but would like some, Plews can design you a rose garden, or integrate roses into a mixed planting scheme that looks good year-round.
For further gardening advice and inspiration, check out Plews Potting Shed blogs, including the rose and pruning selections below. The blog has been going for over 10 years, so there are plenty of gardening topics to ‘scratch your gardening itch’
Or find and follow us on your preferred social media – Instagram Facebook Pinterest
And on that note, you can have a peek at my new, very overgrown garden in the (new) Instagram account @spitfiresandslowworms and for those of you who prefer Facebook – Spitfires and Slow Worms
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