How to prune roses

Many gardeners struggle with knowing when and how to prune shrub roses. Here is a clear description of how to go about pruning shrub roses. Pruning should be carried out between the middle of February and end of March - in Scotland, we do this job in March. Garden designers, gardeners and landscape gardeners will all be able to help with this job, but it is reasonably straightforward if you are wanting have a go yourself - just get some nice thick gloves to avoid the rose thorns!

For repeat-flowering shrub roses, ensure that you maintain a nicely-balanced framework by reducing strong new growth in late winter by up to one-third. You can do this by reducing sideshoots to a few buds, cutting out any dead or damaged stems, and pruning out any weak shoots. The aim is to get air circulating within the plant. More established roses need a light renewal pruning every winter, and you can do this by removing some of the older stems back to the base. When cutting stems back for any reason, always ensure that you don’t leave too long a collar, or cut too close to a main stem - always just leave a collar of around 5-10mm. Flowers can be dead-headed through the year and this will stimulate more flowers to appear.

Roses that flower only once during the year should in fact be pruned in late summer after flowering - again, you are looking to create a framework where air can circulate, keeping them free of dead, diseased, weak, crossing and damaged stems. As with established repeat-flowering roses, it is also a good idea to remove one or two of the main old stems when you do this job too - this will help the plant retain vigour.

Garden designers and landscape gardeners will all have their own favourite shrub roses that they like to use, but by following the instructions above you cannot go far wrong. And remember the old maxim that you should get your worst enemy to prune your roses! You’re very unlikley to kill them, and normally the worst you will do is leave a slightly missahapen plant for a year.

Another great resource for learning about pruning roses is the David Austin website.

To discuss garden design or horticultural consultancy, give Tom a call on 0141 432 1141 or email on tom@tomangel.co.uk