Scottish Daily Mail

PRUNE FOR JUNE BLOOMS

Snip your roses into shape now for a glorious summer show

- NIGEL COLBORN

HOW lovely to admire June roses in full fettle. Whether furnishing walls and arches or presiding over summer perennials, a rose is the undisputed queen of flowers. Not in November, though, when they’re half defoliated with lank stems and dying flowers. Iggy Pop would look prettier, even after an exhausting concert.

But roses need your loving care this winter. To perform next summer, most require pruning. Climbers and ramblers benefit from being re-trained as well.

This is also an excellent time to buy and grow new roses.

Specialist­s have plenty of choice and you can plant bare roots between now and March. Try David Austin (davidausti­nroses.co.uk) or Peter Beales (classicros­es.co.uk).

Pruning varies by rose type. Shrub and ancient kinds, which flower only once, need little attention. Remove dead flowers and old or weak stems — harder pruning is done only if necessary, after summer flowering.

Climbers and ramblers trained on walls, fences and pergolas are the most complex. It’s often best to unhitch all stems from their supports, prune, then rearrange them, tying in as you go.

RAMBLING RULES

RAMBLERS are the strongest growers. Multi-flowered Rambling Rector, spring-blooming Rosa banksiae and ivory-flowered Alberic Barbier are lusty examples. Salmon pink Albertine and the strangely violet Veilchenbl­au are more sedate.

Ramblers produce rapidgrowi­ng shoots or wands each summer. These flower the next year but get untidy thereafter. The simplest pruning method is to remove all long stems that have already flowered.

Cut away weak and diseased material, then tie the current year’s wands to their supports.

Never train rose stems vertically — they flower more profusely if bent at an angle. So arrange in a fan shape or fix them horizontal­ly along their supports.

With ramblers or climbers on pillars, twist the wands gently round their supports before tying. Take care not to kink or snap them — a shallow bend or spiral is all you need.

Climbers grow more sedately and need gentler annual pruning. Vigorous examples, such as silvery pink New Dawn or white climbing Iceberg, are almost like ramblers and can sometimes be treated as such. Fragrant blood- crimson Guinée, beige-yellow Gloire de Dijon and pale pink Penny Lane are slower and produce fewer new stems.

As with ramblers, it’s often easiest to remove the rose from its support — but not every year. Begin by cutting away exhausted stems and weak growths.

On those that have borne flowers, shorten side-shoots by two-thirds. These will produce new flowers next summer.

Re-arrange pruned stems as described for ramblers, tying them into place. Bend them to a fan formation or twist mature stems gently round pillars.

BETTER FLOWERS

AFTER climbers and ramblers, pruning the rest is simple. Bush roses, including hybrid tea and floribunda types, are trimmed between now and March. With hybrid teas, remove weedy shoots and thin surplus growth.

Then shorten all remaining stems that grew last summer. Cut them to within 6in of where they join the older part of the plant. Do the same with floribunda­s, but leave stems longer.

Pruning will encourage strong new shoots from low down in the plant and that will lead to more flowers on sturdy bushes.

Don’t be timid –– pruning isn’t hard. The largest rose garden I ever saw was years ago in Duthie Park, Aberdeen. I asked how long it took to prune the many thousands of roses there. I was told: ‘Not long — we do it with mechanical hedge cutters.’

 ??  ?? Summer sirens: Care for your roses now and you’ll be rewarded with summer blooms
Summer sirens: Care for your roses now and you’ll be rewarded with summer blooms
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