Taking the Fear Out of Rose Pruning

This weekend, rain or shine, I prune the roses, though with a certain amount of trepidation. You thought you were the only one? Every time I prune a rose I worry that I am pruning off too much or too little, because there are so few rules to guide one and so many opinions on how to prune (not to mention so many branches). But roses turn out to be pretty forgiving plants; if they were not, they wouldn’t be so popular.

I think most rose experts would agree that there are at least two rules that can serve to guide you. The first is that roses only flower on new growth so you need to encourage the rose to grow. The second is that the new growth cannot be any larger than the branch from which it sprouted, and that skinny growth makes for skimpy flowers.

The fact that you are not likely to see huge flowers on skinny branches, or thick branches sprouting from thin branches, is why some rose growers prune so hard. They want thick, sturdy new growth so they can get big, exhibition-sized flowers.

I have on occasion pruned “hard” so that only a few thick branches, or more properly, “canes,” are left--and they only about 18 inches tall. I’ve done this to roses that have become old and woody with too many little branches and too much dead wood.

The Light Touch

But I prefer to prune more lightly, leaving the plant almost as tall as it was with as many thick canes as possible plus a lot of smaller branches--though nothing smaller than the thickness of a pencil, since growth emerging from branches that small would make poor, or floppy flowers.

This “thickness of a pencil” is not a bad rule. All branches thinner than a pencil should be cut off so that gives you a starting point--remove them first. Then thin, and shorten, those that are about the thickness of a pencil so they are evenly spaced around the plant.

If you find canes that are old and covered with gray bark, with a multitude of small branches not thicker than a pencil, cut the entire cane off at the base of the plant. Doing this encourages strong new canes to sprout from the base, renewing the rose. Leaving them will, over the years, stunt the plant. You can probably spot a few stunted roses like this in your neighborhood.

Any overly tall canes are shortened but only to bring them into line with the other canes. Always prune just above a bud that faces out from the center of the plant. The buds just below the pruning cuts are going to be the strongest and you want these to grow out from the plant, not into it, where they would become a tangle. If I can’t see a bud below where I’d like to make a cut, I just look for the scar left by a leaf, for that is where most buds form.

Also prune out any branches that are rubbing or crossing each other.

More Branches Preferred

Even though this is “light” pruning, I end up with quite a stack of thorny branches to bundle up for the trash, especially if I’ve been pruning a hybrid tea, which is the most common type of rose. On the smaller, bushier floribundas, I prune even less. They are not going to make very large flowers anyway and I would prefer to have a lot of small branches and--as a result--a lot of flowers, so they look more like flowering shrubs than roses.

I use a small pruning shears for most cuts, but switch to large loppers for the big cuts since I want them cleanly severed with no tearing of the bark. I even use a skinny keyhole saw from the hardware store to make big cuts near the base of the plant where the loppers won’t fit.

If the plant is almost leafless, I pull off the rest of the leaves, but if there are many leaves, I leave them alone. I can’t spray my roses with a dormant oil because they grow with other plants, but I do rake up all leaves and flower petals and send them to the dump to help prevent the spread of disease, especially rust and mildew.

In short, I follow a middle-of-the-road course, and when I run up against a branch I don’t know how to cut, I err on the side of cutting off too little, rather than too much. You can always cut off a little more, but you can’t glue any back on.