The Way to Prune and Deadhead Roses During the Growing Season, or, How I Beat My Rose Bushes into Submission
Knowing effective ways to prune and deadhead roses during the growing season, and implementing them at the right times, guarantees you happy and healthy bushes with blooms to spare. So go ahead and chop ’em up. Sometimes you’ve just gotta be cruel to be kind.
The topic of pruning and deadheading roses is an old one, and it’s widely discussed within gardening and rose fancier circles. If you’ve got roses growing in your garden, it’s a topic to which you’ve probably afforded at least some of your attention. After all, you didn’t become a rose owner so you could stare at dried up, brown flowers, or, equally disappointing, scraggly, bloom-less bushes – you already know that pruning and deadheading your rose bushes is going to be helpful. These activities (along with routine feeding and watering) are going to give you attractive, healthy bushes with as many blooms as genetics will allow. You know these things because you’ve either heard them, read about them, and/or lived them.
And if you don’t already know these things, you’ve come to the right place.
Here’s the deal. I’ve been growing roses now for almost three years. That’s not a long time, especially when compared to the decades logged by so many rose fanciers who’ve quite literally made the process of growing incredibly beautiful roses a science (my parents, and a number of my gardening friends, fall into this category). But what I lack in decades-long seasoning, I make up for in obsessive, anal freakishness.
And balls that are a hell of a lot bigger than my brains.
(Three years is an eternity when you’re obsessive and stupidly/daringly aggressive.)
But do I know as much as lifelong rose growers/fanciers like my folks and my gardening pals? Not even close. (These people not only know how to take care of roses, they know everything about roses – they’re probably capable of creating lab-quality genetic rose bush mutations which are not only insanely beautiful, but could also help your kid out with his algebra homework.) Nope. I’m not there. But what I can offer you here is practical knowledge gained from the commission of 1,001 gardening errors, and a whole ton of OCD-level research. And I sure as hell can give you some decent advice that’ll get you some good-looking, healthy roses.
So, sports fans, it’s time. It’s time to talk some growing season-era rose bush pruning and deadheading The Renaissance Garden Guy way. It’s time to let your rose bushes really have it. It’s time to talk some serious cutting.
Ladies and gentlemen, start your chainsaws!
Hard Pruning – Choppin’ ’em Down to Build ’em Back Better
Hard Pruning Basics
- What is hard pruning? Hard pruning is a technique in which generally 1/3 to 3/4 of the bush’s stem structure is removed through pruning. For example, if the bush’s stem structures give it a height of 48″, hard pruning will reduce that height to between 32″ and 12″. I’ve really given some of my bushes buzz cuts, hard pruning them back by 3/4 of their pre-pruning heights, or even more, in some cases. (I told you I had balls.) Some of my bushes have gotten a lighter trim, where I’ve only taken them down by about 1/3 of their original heights. You’ll read about why some get buzzed, and others not so much, in my field notes a bit later.
- Why do it? This technique helps to eliminate tangled and intersecting/inter-crossing stems (stems growing across one another within the interior of the bush’s form), it allows for better light penetration and air circulation amidst each plant’s stems and foliage (by eliminating those intersecting/inter-crossing stems), it gets rid of dead main stems (you can cut those down right to the ground), it prevents a scraggly overall appearance, and it stimulates new, vibrant growth. By doing it, you can actually begin the process of guiding the overall burgeoning shape of your bush.
- When should you do it? At the very beginning of the growing season when your rose bushes begin to leaf out. (For me here in Zone 5B/6A, this typically happens in mid to late March.) As soon as you see new green leaves/shoots starting to emerge from the nodes on the bush’s main canes (stems), it’s time to hard prune. This emerging growth means that the plant’s moisture and nutrient delivery systems are awake and operational. With substantial lengths of stem removed, the bush’s roots can deliver all the moisture from the soil along shorter routes directly to the remaining nodes/shoots/leaves. And food derived from sunlight via the process of photosynthesis occurring at points of the emerging green structures will, in turn, nourish not only the bush’s roots, but the main stems, and those emerging green structures themselves. By executing your hard prune this early in the growing season, you’re giving each of your rose bushes a long period of time ahead to crank out new, healthy growth. By this time, each plant’s internal calendar recognizes that warmer days outnumber the freezing ones, and the emerging green growth will withstand some cold temperature dips. These plant’s can handle, and will certainly benefit from, a hard prune at this time.
- How often should you do it? Loaded question. It depends on a few things. If at the very beginning of the growing season, a bush’s stems are structurally sound and appealing in form (with no, or very few, tangled and inter-crossing/intersecting stems, and no, or very few, scraggly and straggling stems), you might want to just do a really light trim and skip the hard prune that year. Or if you’d given your bush a really, really hard prune the previous year (more than 3/4 removed), you might want to skip the hard prune, or at least do less of a hard prune – maybe just take 1/3 off, or, just give it a light trim that doesn’t qualify as a hard prune (removing less than 1/3 of the bush). I guess a really safe rule of thumb for me is as follows: Hard prune at least every other year, and, if necessary, every year. And adjust the “hardness” of that prune (1/3 off, 2/3 off, 3/4 or more off) based on the condition of each bush at the very beginning of the growing season.
- Where exactly on each stem do you make the cut? Once I know how much of the stem I want to remove, I look for a node (which may or may not already have a shoot emerging) close to where I want to cut, and I make that cut just a little bit higher up on the stem (within 1/4″ – 3/8″ above the node). When I make each cut within this distance above a node, the cut itself “scabs up” (forms a callus) really quickly, thereby protecting the stem, and simultaneously diverting nutrients and moisture to the node and any corresponding emerging growth.
- What should the cut itself look like? The cut should be made at a 45° angle to the stem. My folks showed me this in their gardens years ago. This angle should be used for any type of cut on any type of plant that you’d like to keep alive and healthy. The reason, according to my Dad: “The wound heals faster.” I’ll tell you what my actual observations have shown me in the field notes below.
- What kind of tool do you use to do a hard prune? Super sharp and powerful bypass pruners. You’ll see my recommendations below.
Notes from the Field
My rose garden planting feature is in its third year, and it has ten robust bushes growing in it, with an underplanting of low-growing sedum as groundcover. It’s fairly unconventional, as far as most rose gardens go (it’s got sort of a wild, uncultivated look about it). But it is a beautiful feature, I think, and I love each and every one of my rose bushes growing in it. And I enjoy an intimate, lifelong (their lives, not mine) relationship with each one of them. With the exception of two, my rose bushes were each grown from bareroot. The two that I did not grow from bareroot were, nevertheless, small, immature first-year plants. All in all, my rose garden planting feature has come a long way in three summers, and my hard pruning activities are a big reason why.
Obviously, I didn’t hard prune anything that first growing season when my roses were initially planted – they were far too immature. And last year, at the beginning of the 2021 growing season, I made the decision to hard prune only two of my bushes – my Knockout bush (which was one of the two NOT grown from bareroot) and one extremely tangled mini. These two performed beautifully throughout 2021, after the hard prunings they each received. They grew enormous, and they were covered in blooms. The other eight also did well, but they grew a little bit tangled and scraggly-looking – healthy, but not as solid and attractive as they could have been. This year, I hard pruned all of my rose bushes. A few, which looked fairly healthy and shapely, received less severe hard prunes – only about 1/2 of the overall growth was removed. Most of the rest were pruned down to about 1/3 to 1/4 of their pre-pruning sizes. Unattractive scraggly and inter-crossing/intersecting stems were all removed and the bushes were given the opportunity to start new growth from the healthy, uniformly thick, and well-spaced main stems.
One of my bushes was pruned down to just a few inches of main stems. This particular bush had evidently been harboring a malignant fungus over the winter. At the beginning of the growing season this past March, it began exhibiting signs of rose stem canker. Its stems began turning first a dark, unhealthy brown, and then black. I cut these stems back at points where they remained healthy and green (often just a few inches of overall length remained). This was just what the doctor ordered. The bush responded beautifully and required no fungicidal treatment at all. This extremely hard prune (along with regular fertilizing and watering) was enough to revive this plant in beautiful fashion.
What about a 45° cut healing faster than one made perfectly straight across (perpendicular to the sides of) the stem? I can tell you that, unless my eyes (back in the pre-retinal detachment days) deceived me, the wound actually begins to callus at the lowest portion of the cut first, and works itself up quickly over the rest of the wound. I’ve never clocked it in a head-to-head time trial versus a perpendicular cut, because I’ve always done as my folks instructed. I can promise you that cuts made at a 45° angle to the stem heal successfully and quickly (and not just on rose bushes, but on other plants, as well) . I’m not going to make my cuts any other way. Why tempt fate?
A really important field note regarding not only hard pruning, but ANY kind of cutting to which you subject your roses, concerns sterilization. YOU’VE GOT TO STERILIZE YOUR CUTTING IMPLEMENT! I do this using a paper towel soaked in a solution of 70% isopropyl alcohol. Wipe down the blades of your cutter before you start operating on your bushes. Yep, do it before you start, and do it immediately after you finish with one bush, and before you start on the next. This is critical. This greatly reduces the risk of spreading harmful fungi, parasites, bacteria, and/or viruses from one plant to another. Again, this is critical. Time consuming? Maybe a little. But it beats wiping all of your bushes out with some nasty infection (that you could’ve prevented from spreading but didn’t ’cause you were too lazy to sterilize your blades, and now you’ve gotta spend a bunch of dough AND a bunch more time kicking yourself in the ass over it).
Obviously, a discussion about the way to prune and deadhead roses is going to need a good cutting implement rec. As always, I’m recommending using Fiskars bypass pruners to do your cutting. They’re razor sharp and they stay razor sharp. They’ll cut through any growth your garden throws at you, and they’re super comfortable and easy to use. I’ve got several different Fiskars pruners in my arsenal. You can use either of these shown here to handle all the cutting you’ll ever do on your rose bushes. Conveniently order one here, directly from Amazon, by clicking either of the #advertisement links below.
Deadheading – The French Revolution of Rose Care Sans the Violent Death (to Plants or Humans)
Deadheading Basics
- What is deadheading? The term “deadheading” refers to the manual removal of spent (fading, dying, petal-dropping) flowers from the plant.
- Why do it? To answer this, I’ll quote from one of my earlier articles here on The Renaissance Garden Guy, “How to Prepare Roses for Winter: A Field Guide:” “…So, when you see that a bloom on one of your pride and joys is spent and ugly-looking, you lop it off. You do this not only because ugly dead blooms are, well, ugly and dead, but also because you know that deadheading is gonna get you new, beautiful flowers. Yep, when you deadhead a rose plant (right above the junction of the first five-leafed branch to a main stem, and below the spent bloom), you’ve just coaxed it into sprouting more growth from the node(s) at this point. And because the flower stem associated with that dead bloom you just chopped off is also gone, the chance to develop seeds is gone with it. Seed development, which happens in the hips at the base of the rose plant’s flowers, takes up a great deal of the plant’s energy. So much energy, in fact, that when a rose is busy producing seeds in its swelling hips, it’s also busy not doing much growing and blooming. The plant is now diverting practically all of its energy into seed development. When you properly deadhead a rose plant, you’re giving it its energy back – you’re encouraging it to produce more foliage and more blooms…” That’s pretty much it, in a nutshell.
- When should you do it? Whenever you see spent flowers on your bushes – up to a certain point. There comes a time later in the growing season, when cooler temperatures are imminent and frost/freezing temps are within a couple of months away, that it is prudent to stop deadheading your rose bushes. For my bushes here in Zone 5B/6A, that time is September 1st. And why should you stop deadheading at this time? Because when you stop deadheading, the rose bush puts almost all of its energy into setting hips and developing seeds. The bush simply doesn’t have the energy to develop new stem and foliage growth. This is a good thing, because that tender new growth is extremely susceptible to the killing frigid temps to come. Zapping and killing new growth with icy air temperatures subjects the entire bush to needless and potentially deadly stress as it heads into the very coldest time of the year. Stop deadheading when you know frost is about two months away in your own hardiness zone. But during the warm spring and summer months, when the only promise of frost comes from your over-packed kitchen freezer, any spent bloom is fair game. Cut the s.o.b. right off.
- Where exactly do you make your cuts when you’re deadheading a rose bush? Another loaded question. In my answer to the first deadheading question above, I reference making the cut just above the first five leafed branch (also known as a five leaflet leaf set, or FLLS) below the spent bloom. But, if you want your new flower and leaf stems to be supported in more rigid, hefty fashion, you can make that cut just above the second FLLS. I’ve done it both ways. By deadheading just above the first FLLS down from the spent flower, you’ll end up with a slightly more sprawling, outward-reaching bush with a possible slight downward arch to the flower bearing stems. This is due to the fact that the flower stems and more numerous three leaflet leaf sets (TLLS) will be supported at a point on the main stem that is slightly more slender and less robust than the section of stem where the second FLLS down from the spent flower occurs. If you make your cut at the second FLLS down from the spent flower, the new flower stems and TLLS will be less likely to appear sprawling and slightly outwardly/downwardly arcing because they’re being supported at a lower, thicker section of that particular main stem. I happen to like my bushes to appear a bit on the sprawling side, but I also appreciate the no-nonsense rigid support of a beefy stem section. This is why I often mix my deadheading cut locations up. I’ll vary these deadheading points from bush to bush, and from stem to stem within the same bush. In my opinion, this lends a more natural, wild appearance to each one of my bushes, and to the planting feature as a whole.
- Where exactly do you make your cuts when you’re deadheading a rose bush? CONTINUED. To further complicate this issue, the super-experienced rose-growing afficianados that I know have always mentioned making those deadheading cuts not only just above the first or (preferrably) second FLLS down from the spent bloom, but just above the first or (preferrably) second FLLS down that ALSO happens to possess an outward facing node at its junction with the main stem. This makes good sense from both the practical and aesthetic standpoint. If the node faces outward, away from the interior of the bush, the new growth will emerge in this direction. When I make my own cuts at such a point, the resulting growth delivers blooms that tend toward the periphery of the bush. This looks great, and it’s really easy to snip a bloom off for the vase on my kitchen table because the flower stems facing toward the periphery of the bush are easily accessible – I don’t have to fight through a bunch of foliage to snip my flower of choice. Plus, it eliminates potentially inward-growing, intersecting, and inter-crossing stems. I personally like a bit of a combination. Most of my cuts happen at the appropriately located FLLS with outward facing nodes. But I do make some of my cuts at FLLS with inward facing, or diagonally facing nodes. Again, I like my bushes to have that hint of the wild about them (and I don’t mind sifting through some foliage toward the center of the bush to cut a flower for my kitchen table).
- More questions about where to make deadheading cuts. Do you absolutely have to make your cuts at FLLS? I often don’t. Obviously, if I find a cluster of blooms originating at a point on a main stem far above any FLLS, and some of the blooms are in the bud/newly-opened stage, and some are already spent or in decline, I’ll cut the spent blooms off just below the blooms themselves. If I were to make the cut just above the first or second FLLS, I’d end up sacrificing the buds and healthy blooms right along with the spent blooms. Further, I’ll cut solitary blooms off at points far above the first FLLS periodically in order to retain a bit of existing green as provided by the plentiful TLLS. I still get new blooms, but they’re typically supported by thinner flower stems, and they can tend to look slightly droopy. But for me, it’s all good. As I’ve said, I like my rose bushes to look a little wild.
- What kind of tool do you use when deadheading rose bushes? As always, I use Fiskars bypass pruners.
Notes from the Field
I follow the basic guidelines discussed above when I deadhead my rose bushes. I admittedly mix things up in terms of where I make my cuts, but this helps me achieve the slightly wild, yet still floriferous appearance of each of my bushes. A few things to note about cut locations: 1) When I make my deadheading cut at the second FLLS down from a spent bloom, it does take a bit longer for the new resulting growth from that node to develop a bud, and eventually flower. When I make the cut at the first FLLS down from the spent bloom, the new buds and flowers come comparatively quickly. 2) When I just snip the spent blooms off directly at their respective stems (and not move down to a node – any node – to make the cut), the bush will remain green and leafy, but no new blooms will generate at that point. To get blooms, you’ve got to cut just above a node, at either a TLLS or FLLS. 3) I’ve cut my bushes just above node locations at TLLS and FLLS of varying levels below spent blooms. The closer to the spent bloom I cut, the faster a new bud shows up, but with less robust support. The further down I cut from the spent bloom (the first FLLS and lower), the progressively longer it takes for new buds to show up, but the support and carriage of the flower is progressively more robust. But, as I’ve said, I do mix it up. Wild thangs. I do love ’em.
I quit deadheading and I stop all forms of pruning (with a couple of exceptions which you’ll read about below) by September 1st. That’s the perfect time for my bushes to start setting hips and forming seeds. When this happens, my bushes are putting everything they’ve got into seed production. As those hips swell with seeds, all other growth stops. This is good. At this point, each bush is understanding that it’s just about time to hibernate. My bushes make it through the most frigid of winters without being covered, and they suffer no cold-related damage or issues whatsoever. Wild and tough.
A quick note about Knock Out rose bush deadheading. Knock Out roses are remarkable bushes. They’re incredibly hardy, they grow large and robust, and they’re almost constantly covered (at least partially) with vivid blooms. Knock Out rose bushes are advertised to be “self-cleaning.” In other words, they’re capable of ridding themselves of spent blooms and generating new ones without the benefit of deadheading. In my garden, this definitely appears to be the case. My Knock Out is a prolific bloomer, even when it’s not aggressively deadheaded. At this point, I’ll mention two things: 1) Even if it’s unnecessary for frequent and profuse blooming, I still deadhead my KO anyway. At the very least, the process of deadheading seems to help the bush keep a great looking form. 2) My Knock Out has occasionally begun to set hips at the bases of some spent blooms that were not removed through deadheading (this seems to have happened in the fall). The main take away here is that the Knock Out bush is a glorious and powerful bloomer, even when it’s not deadheaded. But I do deadhead mine to help make it the best it can be. (And because I’m freakishly anal.)
You can watch my really helpful video on The Renaissance Garden Guy YouTube Channel demonstrating a great way (The Renaissance Garden Guy way, of course) to deadhead rose bushes. Click the image link of the purple floribunda rose blooms directly below to watch the video.
Roses are massively heavy feeders. You’ve got to fertilize them. For my full-sized Knockout and floribunda roses, I use Espoma Organic Rose-tone. It’s a granular with an N-P-K ratio (nitrogen-phosphorous-potassium) of 4-3-2 and it’s an organic product containing a bunch of different beneficial active microbe cultures. Great rose food. Espoma recommends a monthly application, so I start the first feeding at the beginning of April and feed them for the last time no later than the first day or two of September. Click the #advertisement link to order it here, from Amazon.
For my miniature roses, which benefit from a faster uptake, water-soluble liquid fertilizer, I actually use an inorganic (synthetic) product – Miracle-Gro Water Soluble Rose Plant Food. This product has got an N-P-K ratio of 18-24-16 and comes in a granular form that gets dissolved in water and is applied either from a hose feeder or a watering can. Because it’s in water-soluble, liquid form (after mixing the granules with water) when applied to the plant’s roots, it’s assimilated quickly. Because this product is designed for rapid uptake by the roots of each plant and does not amend the soil through the accumulation of minerals and microbes, its N-P-K percentages are higher than the organic Espoma product. I feed my minis every two weeks with this Miracle-Gro product, starting in late March or early April. The use of this product has resulted in wildly huge miniature rose bushes (no suckers – mine are all own root bushes – just the plants themselves growing huge and healthy) covered in gigantic blooms (the biggest I’ve seen on miniature rose bushes anywhere). As I do with the Espoma Organic Rose-tone product, I make sure that the last feeding of Miracle-Gro happens in very early September. Click the #advertisement link to learn more about this product, or to order it here, directly from Amazon.
An update to “The Way to Prune and Deadhead Roses… ” for RGG readers: As of last summer (2023), I no longer use Miracle-Gro Water Soluble Rose Plant Food as a fertilizer for my rose plants. I’ve found that the soil amending capabilities and the nutritional components of the granular Espoma Organic Rose-tone product offer better results for my rose bushes. That’s not to say that the Miracle-Gro product is not an excellent product – it IS an excellent product. (Its extremely fast uptake by rose plants yields immediate results, particularly for miniature roses.) I simply prefer the soil amending capabilities of the granular organic Espoma product. Both fertilizers are excellent, and I know many avid rose growers who swear by not only Espoma Organic Rose-tone, but by the Miracle-Gro product, as well. I’ve had great success with both, and though I’m now only using the Espoma product, I’ll continue to recommend both.
General Pruning and Suckers
General Pruning
General pruning is usually pretty much accomplished throughout the growing season through the deadheading process. Particularly if you’re deadheading down to the various FLLS. But general pruning can really mean almost anything that involves removing parts – any parts – from a rose bush. For example, I’ve trimmed off some clusters of TLLS near the tops of my various bushes. That’s general pruning, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve cut my bushes down to the first, second, and even third FLLS when deadheading them. Also general pruning, in my book. I just recently cut a main stem of one of my rose bushes down to just a few inches above grade. This particular stem evidently had its course set for distant horizons and was growing in a crazy direction (don’t worry, it wasn’t a sucker). Even though it had some really pretty flower clusters on it, I still cut it down. More general pruning.
But as in deadheading, per se, general pruning should be stopped when cold weather is around the corner. I stop all general pruning activities at the same time that I stop specifically deadheading: September 1st. With two exceptions. The first exception pertains to any extremely long or straggling and/or dying stems which might be caught by blistering, frigid winds, and potentially ripped from the bush during the winter. Last fall, I noticed that a couple of main stems on two bushes (one on each bush) had sort of petered out and dried up. They were longish, and I believed, in danger of being ripped from the bushes by icy winds over the course of the long winter. Rather than risking damage to those bushes, I cut those stems off. If I see something like that going on in the fall, I’ll prune it off. The other exception, which I thankfully don’t have to deal with, concerns suckers.
Suckers
What are suckers? To answer this question, I’ll once again quote from my article of last year, How to Prepare Roses for Winter: A Field Guide: “…Suckers are canes (stems) which originate from the root systems (or sections of crown below the graft unions) of grafted rose plants. Some rose plants supplied by growers actually consist of the main cane, or stem, of the desired sport (variety) of rose, grafted onto the healthy rootstock of another sport. This ensures successful survival and growth of the desired variety grafted to it. Suckers happen when this process backfires. Sometimes that healthy rootstock, of that entirely different variety of rose, sends up growth of its own in the form of brand new (and often larger and faster growing) canes – these are suckers. Many times, these suckers can overrun and “choke out” the desirable grafted variety. If you think you’re dealing with a sucker, get rid of it. You’ll know it’s a sucker for sure if you follow it down (you’ll need to move some dirt out of the way) and find that it’s growing out of the crown below the graft union, or from the roots themselves. Cut it off at the point where it originates and seal the cut with a tree wound sealing product. I have only vicarious experience with this issue gained through my firsthand observation of the efforts of a fellow gardener. Her pruning and sealing efforts were successful and she had no more suckers on that particular plant. Get rid of suckers when you see them…” Like the last sentence says – get rid of them when you see them. Even if one rears its ugly head in the fall.
The sucker experience in my garden has been thankfully nonexistent. All of my bushes are own root. No alien life forms will be emerging from their root systems. The gardener I referenced above, whom I’ll call “Mrs. P,” and my parents, were not so lucky. As described above, I watched Mrs. P successfully eliminate suckers from a particular rose bush. My parents were also successful in vanquishing the suckers which plagued some of their bushes. Unlike Mrs. P, who used a tree wound sealing product (I wish I could remember the brand), my folks laboriously cut sections of root away, or continually cut the suckers off at their respective points of origin until they no longer persisted.
For Further Reading
On The Renaissance Garden Guy
In addition to “How to Prepare Roses for Winter: A Field Guide,” I wrote two articles here on The Renaissance Garden Guy which contain quite a bit of information relevant to the topics discussed in this piece. “Pruning, Pinching, and Deadheading Perennial Plants,” and “Naturalizing Perennials in the Garden Scheme” each contain further information about a number of plant structures referenced in this article today. Give them a read if you’ve got an interest.
Pruning and Deadheading Climbing Roses: Two Great Info Sources
I currently do not grow climbing roses, and I never have. My parents and grandparents successfully grew beautiful climbing roses, but I have not. I don’t ever write about anything here which I haven’t tried or observed firsthand, and subsequently comprehended and internalized. Since my memories of my family’s climbing rose experiences are dim at best, I’ll defer to some outstanding information on this topic provided by others, and recommend it to you here. “Two Steps for Pruning Climbing Roses” from Fine Gardening, and “How to Train and Prune Climbing Roses” from The Spruce are two detailed, concise reads covering subject matter with which I have no personal experience. If you’re a climbing rose owner, or potential owner, these two articles may be helpful to you. I’ll certainly apply what I’ve read in them to my own climbing rose experience if and when I start growing these beautiful vines in my own garden.
Time To Stick a Fork in This One
My rose bushes, like all rose bushes, do, admittedly, require some guidance. I prune and deadhead my roses in order to keep them happy, healthy, and beautiful. There are definitely some fundamentals I follow when pruning and deadheading my guys, but alot of what I do along these lines is pretty much influenced by preference and taste. I think you’ll find that this is the case with your own rose pruning and deadheading regimen. There are basics to follow, but there’s always wiggle room that allows for you to do the kind of cutting that you think works best for you and your roses. In any case, taking a blade to your roses, within reason, is the right thing to do. So go ahead and chop ’em up. Your roses are gonna love you for it. And you’re gonna love ’em right back.
Cheers, and Happy Gardening!
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John, your roses are really beautiful. All the care and your attention to detail is reflected in every bloom. I do not have roses but I do appreciate the information. Knowing how and when to prune is important for every thing in our gardens.
Thank you, Kevin. I appreciate your kind words. And I do agree, there are good ways and not so good ways to prune our perennials. Doing it in a way that minimizes trauma to the plant while providing it with optimal regrowth potential is always the goal. I tried to demonstrate this fact in the article. Thank you again for your kind words, and thanks for your interest in the article. It’s all truly appreciated.
Wow! Lots of great info here John. I’m reluctant to do a hard prune. It sounds scary, but as a new Rose gardener I know the time will come. Thank you for all the tips and making it sound easy. Clearly you know what you’re doing as your roses look spectacular.
Thank you, Alegria. I’m glad you liked the info here. I learned most of it the hard way. I’m now definitely looking forward to seeing all of your roses. From what I’ve seen so far, I’m sure they’re all going to be gorgeous! Thanks again!
Oh my God those amazingly gorgeous images actually gorgeous flowers …. Unbelievable how beautiful your garden is, how much love those flowers get!!!!!
Enjoyed every word you wrote, so much knowledge, so much to learn…. AMAZING article!!!!🙏🌸🌺
Thank you so much, Roxxy – how incredibly kind! I’m happy that you like the photos of the roses. I agree with you, there aren’t too many things more beautiful than the bloom of a rose. And I’m really thrilled that you liked the article. Your kind thoughts and interest in my efforts here are dearly appreciated. Thanks once again!
Enjoyable and informative. Excellent detail in a good humored post.
Thank you, Rick – I’m so glad you enjoyed it! Your kind thoughts are truly appreciated.
Great detail for pruning my roses, thank you!
Thank you, so much – glad you liked the info!