Pruning Rose Bushes

The subject of pruning rose bushes seems to be one that gives nightmares to most non-professional gardeners.

This is strange in a way, when you consider the fact that pruning roses is part of maintaining a healthy growth.

However, it is hardly surprising when you realize that different kinds of roses need pruning at different times of the year, which can be quite confusing to someone who is new at gardening.

Plus, when you consider the various varieties of roses, and differences in the care they need, and pruning rose bushes can seem like a bed of thorns.

If you are one of those people for whom pruning roses is like embarking on a journey to a foreign land without a map, here’s some help.

First of all, take a deep breath and relax.

Pruning rose bushes really isn’t as difficult as you think. All you need to remember is why you need to do it, and a few guidelines for how.

Why does one need to prune roses, one wonders. After all, no one prunes them in the wild and they still seem to grow well enough.

But think about it.

Do wild roses ever have bumper blooms? Do they last very long? Are they very healthy?

The whole point of cultivating plants is to improve over what they manage in the wild.

When you bring up roses in your garden, invest time and energy and emotion into seeing them grow up healthy and strong and blooming, you would want to do everything you can to help them along on the path to health.

And pruning rose bushes is an essential part of their general upkeep because -

• It encourages growth
• It can be used to shape the bushes into pleasant shapes
• It thins out extra growth so that all parts of the bush get air
• It prevents the plant from getting too crowded with its own branches

Try not to worry too much about pruning rose bushes, just get yourself the right tools, and give it a go. It is almost impossible to kill a rose bush by pruning it wrong.

So pick up a pair of sharp shears, make sure they are not too long, pick out a pair of hardy gloves, and begin cutting.

There are a number of things one must keep in mind -

• Always use sharp clean tools to avoid jagged cuts and infection
• Always prune from the base up
• Cut away dead, dying, or diseased canes and branches
• Cut away thin, weak branches
• Remove extra foliage
• Thin out the middle of the bush so that there is more breathing space
• Cut away as much as a quarter of the thickness of the bush
• Always cut above an outward growth bud
• Make sure the cut slopes away from the bud so that water does not drip into the bud and rot it
• Prune shrub roses and bush roses in mid spring
• Prune rambler roses in late summer
• Prune climbing roses in autumn
• Prune ground cover roses in spring

You can, of course find out much more about pruning rose bushes, if you want to, at your local nursery or at the library. Just remember, it is necessary, and it isn’t all that hard