Get pruning scissors out
DIFFERENT STROKES: EACH ROSE TYPE MUST BE CUT ACCORDING TO ITS NEEDS
Reduce redundant stems and pull off dead leaves – now is the time.
It’s time to attend to winter pruning. If you do not have the heart to cut down flowering bushes right now, it is okay to delay, but by end July they will be ready for the cut.
Why prune?
Pruning is simply the removal of old or weak stems, twiggy side stems and stems growing too close together which would not be able to produce nice, long and strong-stemmed blooms in spring. The aim is to make space for new growth to develop and produce long-stemmed blooms or lots of flowers in October. It also means that one needs to appreciate the growth characteristics of each variety.
Pruning according to rose type
The most common garden roses are hybrid teas (upright bushes with classical shaped blooms), floribundas (bushy with clusters of blooms) and standard roses.
Hybrid tea roses
To prune these roses more lightly, cut back to hip height for most varieties and retain some side stems on the main stems and cut back to about 10cm.
Remove dead branches and older main stems (stems and prickles are grey).
Cut forked branches back to a single “tine”.
Pull off all leaves because they can harbour pests and diseases.
Where water is available, and normal rose care is carried out, hybrid tea roses may be pruned back more severely by reducing the stem length to 50cm, and reducing the number of stems to three or four, making sure there is a secateurs’ width between each stem, removing all side stems.
The water and nutrition being pushed upwards by the roots is now concentrated in fewer sprouting eyes and these will form nice strong stems and large blooms or clusters.
Remove criss-crossing stems to provide space for new growth and cut back remaining stems by about a third.
Avoid cutting back into older woody stems because the eyes have retracted into a deep dormancy and it takes longer (and more water) for these to be activated and to sprout.
Such new shoots are very sappy and easily break and bend when the spring storms arrive or when weighed down by flowers.
Your standard roses
These are bush roses, mounted on a long, single cane and only the head is pruned; almost the same as bush roses. Cut back all stems and branches to about 50cm of the crown or bud union and then remove all the older wood and twigs. The final cutting back should leave the stems about 30 cm long.
Miniature standards are obviously cut even shorter unless they, too, are expected to perform like a small shrub.
Umbrella standards are cleaned up by cutting off all the side stems and twigs and by shortening the arching canes to one’s liking.
Use fertiliser (Ludwig’s Vigorosa 5-1-5 (25) or long-lasting Vigo-longer controlled release fertiliser around each pruned bush.
Water well afterwards. Watering needs to start soon after pruning, once a week to start with, increasing it to twice a week and every second day as the temperatures rise and the roses begin to sprout.
To avoid early pest activity, it is safe to spray after pruning with Ludwig’s Insect Spray at double the recommended rate (instead of 50ml use 100ml in 10 litres water).
The oily component of the spray will have a suffocating action.
Here is where you will find a pruning demonstration.
Find out how easy it is to prune roses by attending the free pruning demonstrations at Ludwig’s Roses Egoli, Glenferness, today and tomorrow at 10.30 am.
The demonstrations are free, no need to book.
For more information contact: 081-715-5110.