Rose Gardening Care – Rose Pruning Tips

There are two very important parts of your rose care routine: pruning and deadheading. You will read a number of ways to do these chores, including when, where and why you should do it at the times you do it.

Different rose gardeners will swear by different techniques that they will swear is tried and true. You will need to read why they choose the methods they choose, but if you have no idea where to start, keep reading. You will probably modify these methods over time to be personalized for your garden’s health and needs.

Rose pruning is not the most complicated task, although some rose growers will swear by its importance, making it a bigger chore than it is. There are four basic rules of pruning and some common sense that will make life easier. If you apply to your basic rules every time you go to your garden with shears, you are sure to have a beautiful bush with large blooms.

1. Always make sure that your bush is free from growth. This way, you will have less disease and will allow good circulation to keep the fungus infection.

2. Remove the dead growth. Your bushes will look better; your garden will look better. The insects will go somewhere else and disease should leave you alone.

3. Shape your bushes as they get bigger. You will need to do this to keep them looking symmetric and great in your garden.

4. Remove the crossing branches so that you can show strong growth in your rose bushes.

The basic common sense rules for your rose bush:

1. Clean your shears to make sure that you remove any diseases or fungal diseases that might be on the tools to keep them from going to another plant.

2. If you have made any cuts, seal out the disease. You can use regular Elmer’s glue, which is cheap and just as effective as commercial options.

If you are interested in hard or “low” pruning, you will want to cut the canes back three or four buds to the base unions. You will have much stronger canes that are 4-5 inches in length. If you have hybrid teas, grandiflora and floribunda variety, this technique will work well. If you have established bushes, they might not recycle, so do not do hard pruning. If you are trying to revitalize a sick or neglected bush, you can try hard pruning to save her.

Moderate or medium pruning will help you to cut stronger stems back to about half of their length. Weaker canes can be cut. You will see great results with floribundas, hybrid teas, grandifloras and tree roses. If you have light or high pruning in mind, you can cut the cane around 2/3rds of its length. You will want to remove the unwanted wood. Light pruning is not a good choice to get rid of early blooms. You should only use this technique if the other ones are not working and the rose bush has become an eyesore.

         

Care of Roses - Rose Gardening Tips