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Pruning Rose Bushes - Bush RosesAll 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.
Bush Roses and Shrub RosesRose 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.
5 weeks on, we have this - plenty of basal growth ready to form a well-shaped framework.
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