Prune OLD ROSES

Old-fashioned roses may flower only once, but they are glorious when they do. Ensure the best possible display by pruning and training now

‘Old roses’ are those that were bred before 1867 when the first Hybrid Tea, ‘La France’, appeared. They are divided into several groups: Centifolias, Albas, Gallicas, Mosses, Damasks and Bourbons. We can also include some more modern roses in the same category in so far as pruning is concerned. These include the Hybrid Musks of the 1920s, invaluable for their health, vigour, free flowering and scent, and the Hybrid Perpetuals, a fusion between the Bourbons and almost any other parent.

Old roses di er from modern ones, in that unless judicious and skilled winter pruning is carried out, their blooms will be few and fleeting. The pruning technique involves pulling the long supple wands of this season’s growth down into an arc and anchoring them in position. This stops the sap simply rising to the top of each stem and encourages flowers from every joint.

The basic principles of removing dead, diseased, weak and crossing growth is the same, however, and all the remaining shoots should be shortened by about a third. A proportion of older wood should be removed completely to encourage strong growth shoots from the base. A balance between production of flowering wood and growth wood to form a framework is ideal. Remember: the harder you prune and the less bend you put on a shoot, the more extension growth will be produced. Shoots that are bent more horizontally will be studded with flowers along their entire length.