Roses have grown at an amazing rate with this years hot and wet weather! You’re likely wondering if you should be cutting them back before winter sets in.
Pruning is an important and necessary step in growing roses. It keeps the plant healthy and promotes new growth.
Hybrid Tea Roses, Floribunda and Grandiflora roses are usually cut back in the early spring just as the buds are growing. If you want large blooms for cut flowers, then prune it hard – down to 18″ from the ground – also removing dead branches and diseased or weakened stems, while leaving the healthy and vigorous ones. You may end up with less blooms, but each bloom will grow to be large. Continual trimming and deadheading of your rose bush throughout the season will help encourage new blooms to grow. As a general rule, dead or diseased wood on any rose shrub should be removed as soon as you see it.
If your rose bush is quite large by the end of the season, you can do a light pruning after the first hard frost in the fall. Trim the longer stems to keep them from breaking in winter storms and also prune away any broken, dead or diseased stems. Keep the pruning light as too much will stimulate new growth which will be damaged by freezing winter weather.
Old fashioned roses and climbers should only be pruned once a year right after their flowering period is done. Do not prune them in the spring as these types of roses bloom on old wood from the previous year’s growth and you will be cutting away all the flowers you would otherwise be enjoying in the spring.
