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Pruning roses is an essential step in maintaining healthy and beautiful bushes. By removing dead or diseased wood, promoting air circulation, and encouraging new growth, pruning helps keep your roses blooming year after year. And, of course, that’s what we all want to achieve!
In this article, I’ll dive into the different types of roses and how to prune them to ensure you keep your garden looking vibrant. So, grab your pruning shears and let’s get started.
Understanding Different Types of Roses
To enjoy the fruits of your labour, you should first understand what roses you keep and how their pruning needs differ from other varieties.
Let’s start with floribunda and hybrid tea roses. Their large, fragrant blooms and tall, upright shape, certainly catch the eye. But this attention also requires careful pruning to avoid the plants becoming tangled and generating more branch growth than flowers. You’ll know if you’ve got hybrid tea roses growing in your garden because they’re repeat flowerers, usually with one flower per stem and a tendency to bloom in three flushes.
Floribunda roses, on the other hand, are like the understated siblings of hybrid teas. They produce clusters of smaller blooms and have a more compact shape, making them ideal for border plantings or container gardens. But don’t let their size fool you – they still require regular pruning to keep them healthy. As I’ve learned, removing weak or spindly growth is key to promoting strong blooms.
Grandiflora roses are a hybrid between hybrid teas and floribundas, producing large clusters of blooms on tall stems. They require a similar pruning approach to hybrid teas and floribundas, but with a focus on cutting back tall stems by a third to promote new growth.
Shrub roses are hardy and low-maintenance, making them perfect for novice gardeners or those who simply don’t have the time for regular pruning. And then there are climbing roses, the wild and free-spirited rebels of the rose world. With long, flexible stems, you can train them to climb up trellises, walls, or fences. Keep in mind though that they require careful selection of strong, healthy stems to promote optimal growth.
When to prune roses in the UK
The best time to prune roses in the U.K. is usually in late winter or early spring, around February or March, just before new growth begins. However, the exact timing may vary depending on your local climate and roses. It’s important to avoid pruning too early as this can cause the plant to produce new growth prematurely, which winter frosts may damage.
There are a few exceptions to this rule, however. For instance, rambling roses. These are a type of climbing rose that bloom on the previous year’s growth, so they are typically pruned in the summer after flowering has finished. If you have rambling roses, you should cut back any overly long or unwanted stems to control the plant’s size and encourage new growth for the following season. Likewise, some of the modern shrub roses, like David Austin, are often pruned in early spring or even later in the season after they have finished blooming. I recommend checking the specific pruning requirements for each type of rose that you have, as they can vary depending on the variety and how it grows.
The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) provides a decent hardiness rating system for plants in the U.K. which is based on the lowest winter temperature a plant can withstand. Most roses are rated hardy in the U.K., so frost damage is generally not a concern when pruning. But it’s still important to check your local weather forecast beforehand to avoid pruning during a frosty period.
You can also let the roses tell you — when they start to bud or leaf out, it’s time. During the summer, cut back dead flowers and deadhead to encourage more blooms. In the autumn, after the first killing frost, you should trim longer stems to prevent them from snapping in winter storms. I also recommend removing any dead or diseased branches and foliage. Make sure to clean your cutting tools too, preventing transferring disease to another plant.
How to prune roses
- Start by removing any dead or damaged wood from the plant. Cut back to the base of the cane where it meets the main stem.
- Remove any crossing branches to open up the centre of the plant. This helps to prevent damage and encourages airflow.
- Prune the remaining canes by cutting above an outward-facing bud, sloping the cut at a 45-degree angle. This will encourage new growth to grow outward.
- Seal the fresh cuts with a pruning sealer to prevent rot and pests from entering.
- Finally, feed your roses with a long-lasting fertiliser to provide essential nutrients.
