Pruning Roses

Roses by post from Tree2mydoor. 

Pruning roses is an essential task if you want to make sure your roses do really well the following season. Read on and find out about pruning roses especially if you have one of our fantastic rose bushes.

Why prune roses?

Pruning helps to speed up the growth of young healthy shoots, by removing the older weaker ones. Pruning roses is also essential if you want to maintain an attractive shape to your rose bush and sometimes if you just leave your rose bush to grow it can get a bit top heavy in places and be susceptible to wind damage and so on. You also should know that if you don’t prune, your rose flowers will grow on the new shoots and so get higher and higher every year. So there are plenty of good reasons to get those pruning shears out and do a job on your roses.

Here’s what you will need.

Pruning roses isn’t difficult so you won’t need lots of equipment. All you need is:

· Good Secateurs, sharp ones really make your job a lot easier and cleaner.

· Some gardening gloves; to protect you from the thorns when you are holding those roses back.

· A good gardening sack or similar to carry away the left over branches.

When to prune ?

Mid-winter is the best time to prune your rose bushes.

They will be dormant at the moment, so it is great to get in there and do a bit of pruning before new growth starts occurring. Early spring is also a time when you can prune, at this time the rose bushes will still be dormant or at least semi dormant.

How to prune?

· You can afford to be fairly harsh when pruning. Remove all unproductive growth to between 8-10 inches in height (or around knee height). Keep taking a step back and looking at your rose bush so you can keep an attractive shape.

· When cutting, make sure you make a clean (where the sharp secatuers come in) cut about a quarter of an inch above an outward facing bud. Be careful not to cut to close or this will dry out the stem.

· If there are any dead shoots or ones that look very thin and weedy it is a good idea to trim these right back, because it will encourage lots of strong and healthy new growth.

· When you are done you should be left with a small rose bush with all stems facing outward, with an open centre.