Pruning Roses

The practice of pruning roses not only helps in maintaining the shape and size of the flowers, but also affects their entire physiology. By following proper pruning methods, you can easily remove dead and diseased canes from your garden roses and facilitate air circulation in them. This will foster good health of the roses and augment their quality. But, pruning rose bushes can especially be very tricky and cumbersome, if you are a novice and don’t really know how to get on with the task. Just go through these tips of how and when to prune your roses and underline the beauty of your garden with a rosy medley of sights and scents.

When to Prune Rose Bushes

The type and species of the rose plant and its location are crucial determinants of pruning. For most of the species, spring acts as the harbinger of the trimming time. Blooming of the forsythia is also an indicator of the rose pruning season. If you don’t have forsythia blooms in your garden, keep a watch on the leaf buds of your roses. You can infer that it is pruning time if you notice swollen leaf buds on your rose plants. However, in most of the hybrids, the pruning season is in March or early April, just before growth starts in the plant.

How to Prune Rose Bushes

Follow these basic guidelines while pruning roses. They are applicable to all the varieties.

Use sharp and clean pruning equipment. Select a good pair of bypass pruning shears to make precise cuts. Use large-handled bypass loppers for cutting large canes.
Make sure you wear long protective clothes and a pair of rose gloves to avoid scratches and injuries from thorns.
While making a cut, hack the plant at an angle of 45 degree. The cut should slant away from the bud and should be about ¼ inch above it.
If you notice dark and dried up canes (usually black or brown colored), remove them from the plant. Also do away with the weak and thin canes.
Once you remove the dead and weak canes, seal the cut with white glue. This will impede further entry of cane borers to the plants.
If you notice any sucker growth from the bud union, make certain that you remove it. Don’t cut the suckers, but extract them from the roots.

With these aforementioned pruning tactics and a little bit of practice, you can easily transform your garden into a dappling bed of roses.

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