Too early to prune rose bushes
If plants have overlong canes likely to break in winter winds, shorten them Helen Chesnut
QI am looking for advice on pruning bush and climbing roses in my newly acquired garden. Can any be pruned now?
A: Prune bush roses and other summer-flowering shrubs in late winter, that is late February to early March. If any of the roses have overlong canes likely to break in winter winds, shorten them now.
One pruning job I often do undertake in late autumn or winter, ideally during a period of dry, mild weather, is on the climbing roses — just the modern ones that give repeat flowering. Leave ramblers like Kiftsgate and Albertine alone until their one, early summer burst of bloom is over. Pruning now will remove some of the flowering canes.
As with all tree and shrub pruning, I start by removing dead, damaged and diseased growth. Then, if the climbing rose is well established with many canes, look for the oldest canes among them. They’ll be thicker and darker than the others. Remove some of these at ground level, never removing more than a third of all the canes emerging from the ground. This thinning out of old growth helps to keep the plant young, vigorous and generous with flowering.
That done, look for spindly, weak, and awkwardly placed shoots. Remove them at their source.
Almost all modern climbers bloom best when the canes are growing at or close to the horizontal. Arrange the remaining canes against the plant’s support fan style, so that the canes rise to different heights against the plant’s support before they are bent toward the horizontal and secured to the support. Shorten any overlong ones to fit the support.
It is the side shoots growing off these main, framework canes that will give the flowers. Shorten these side shoots to leave two or three buds (points of growth). Now remove any remaining leaves on the rose and clean under and around the plant. You should be left with a neat pattern of canes well secured to a support.