Pruning Roses

Pruning your roses should be done to improve their appearance, to remove dead wood and to control the quantity and quality of flowers produced. If roses are not pruned, they will soon grow into a bramble patch and the flowers will be small and of poor quality.  Remove spent blooms to encourage new growth and recurrent blooming.

1. Prune roses in very early spring after any snow has melted but before much new growth on the roses has started. The best time is when the buds have swelled - that is, the little bumps that will turn into branches have started to grow a bit, forming little buds about the size of a sunflower seed. These swollen buds are usually red.
2. Choose your tools. Hand shears are good for branches 1/2 inch or thinner. For thicker branches, use long-handled loppers, which give you more leverage. You'll probably also want a pair of heavy leather or rose gloves to protect your hands and arms from thorns.
3. Pull away any winter protection, such as burlap, rose cones or mounded soil.
4. Cut out any dead wood first. This wood is blackened all the way through. In contrast, live wood, when cut, will be white in the center. (Live wood is usually a nice, healthy green on the outside, but if it has suffered some winter damage, it may be black on the outside.)
5. Cut away any thin, spindly wood thinner than a pencil (unless the bush is not very vigorous and that's all you have on it).
6. Cut out any branches that cross each other or rub against each other. These can become prime spots for disease invasion.
7. Select four to six remaining thick, sturdy, dark-green upright branches to be the branches that remain on the bush. You want to create a nice vase-shaped bush that is open in the center and has no crossing branches.
8. Shorten these healthy canes to 1 to 4 feet, depending on the mature height of the rose and your personal preferences.
9. Make the proper cut when shortening your roses to ensure healthy, attractive growth. Find a bud that is on the outside of the wood (faces away from the center of the bush). Make a cut at a 45-degree angle sloping inward to the center of the bush. Cutting right above an outward-facing bud encourages new growth outward, which is important for good shrub shape and circulation.