Pruning Rose Bushes
- Bush Roses
All rose bushes (Hybrid
Tea and Floribundas) benefit from hard pruning in the spring. Rose flowers
are borne on the tips of new growth and pruning back hard encourages the rose bush to
send out plenty of new shoots. Pruning also encourages a better shape, with the
flowers not too far from the ground! Un-pruned or 'snipped-at' roses can get to
a metre or so height in 2 years, with flowers at the top of straggly growth, and
lots of prickly stems totally devoid of foliage at the lower half of the rose bush.
Hybrid Tea Rose 'Peace'
Bush Roses and Shrub Roses
Rose Bushes and Bush Roses should
not be confused with Shrub Roses. Shrub roses are totally different. Hybrid Tea
and Floribunda Roses are those which are normally referred to as Bush Roses.
There is no secret
formula for rose pruning. It is so easy to do, yet some 'gardeners' still profess that it should
be done in the 'old-fashioned' (now discredited) way, of pruning to an 'outer
growing bud' because this is the one that breaks into growth to give the
classical rose bowl shape. Truth of the matter is, that several buds below the
pruning cut - whichever way they face - break into growth. Some of them inward
facing!
Some of the finest rose
beds that I have seen, are cut back by a hedge-trimmer each year; with scant
regard as to whether on not the cut is above, below, or indeed through an
outward facing bud.
The most important thing
to remember, is that you cut your rose bush back hard, to within 30cms of the ground, into
year-old green wood, or several-years-old brown wood.
-
Prune
your rose bushes in March or April,
-
Use good pruners
for pruning your bush roses and other shrubs.
-
Wear gloves
- roses can be rather vicious
-
Be careful picking up
your debris
-
Also cut out all of the
dead wood of the rose bush - use a pruning saw if need be.
-
Feed the rose
bush with Fish
Blood & Bonemeal - or any other balanced fertilizer.
Job to do - what a mess! |
Job done! Weeding is the
next job here! 
|
5 weeks on, we have this -
plenty of
basal growth ready to form a well-shaped framework.
More information
about Roses
Back
to A-Z of Pruning
| 
