Ask Ludwig
Pruning rethink
Claude Scott of Johannesburg writes I have a few ‘Arianna’ roses and now I need to prune them. I’ve heard that I must cut them back to an outside eye, and that the angle of the cut should be sloping; is this correct?
Ludwig replies In the old days, this was done in the belief that it would result in the rose producing outward-growing stems. However, we have found that the rose makes up its own mind and sprouts from what it regards as the strongest eye.
Basically, you must cut a tallgrowing rose down to 90cm, a medium rose to 70cm and a low rose, such as ‘Arianna’, to 50cm.
Cut out dead wood or old stems (with brown thorns), crisscrossing stems and reduce forked stems to a single stem, favouring the stronger stem. I recommend making a straight cut that is well above the eye, which allows the eye to sprout new stems. The old advice of making a sloping cut just above the eye so that water would run easily off the wound is not really an issue in our climate. A slanted cut can actually cause problems; if it is on the same level as the eye, the stem will likely dry out, and not produce any new growth. It is much better to make a straight cut.
CONTACT ludwigsroses.co.za