There’s good news for lazy gardeners this year: You don’t have to prune your rose bushes. After all, no one takes care of all those roses that have been growing on abandoned homesteads for decades.
However, if you want to have buckets of beautiful blooms this summer, now’s the time to prune your roses into shape, says Martha Turner, lead maintenance specialist for the South Suburban Parks and Recreation Horticulture Department.
Cutting out dead, broken, diseased or crossing canes improves the health of the plant giving it better air circulation, keeping diseases down and adding to the rose’s appearance. Pruning also extends the rose’s life.
If you’d rather get poked in the eye with a sharp stick than get gouged by thick thorns, just think of roses as another garden shrub that needs an annual haircut.
Turner says she was intimidated by roses when she started working with South Suburban 19 years ago, but now she loves all 1,800 roses she helps tend at the War Memorial Rose Garden in Littleton.
Her advice for pruning beginners is to relax and not worry about making mistakes. “If one single bad cut kills a rose, it was on its last leg anyway,” she says.
For the best rose-pruning results, you’ll need a bypass pruner with sharp blades that cross like scissors. These pruners give clean cuts instead of crushing tender canes. Other equipment includes long-handled loppers to cut dead canes from the base of the plant, a pruning saw to remove older woody canes, leather gloves and long sleeves.
First, cut dead canes away from the plant to make room to work. Then make precision cuts at the line between the live and dead wood. Pruning cuts are made in the live part of the cane.
Look for a bud thatap pushing away from the center of the shrub and cut ¼ inch above it, at a 30 degree angle. This helps the bud continue to grow out instead of into the center of the shrub.
After pruning, carefully remove any dead leaves or mulch from the base of the rose. Watch for new canes that are starting to grow from the crown and treat them with extra care. Those canes will become a healthy part of the blooming shrub and will be ready for pruning next season.
