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Helpful Tips Make Pruning Roses Less Of A Thorny Issue

Photo by MONICA BRANDIES

Well-pruned rose bushes may look naked right after pruning, but in just two months they will have more, larger blooms on a healthier plant. These Elina roses are a hardy hybrid tea rose variety with large, dark green foliage and light yellow blossoms.

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By MONICA BRANDIES

Tribune correspondent

Published: January 29, 2009

BRANDON - Pruning roses in Florida is not a difficult job, especially compared to the rewards.

But there is one problem. In most of the state, they never go completely dormant — or even stop blooming.

Different growers have different times to prune, but the winter pruning — the most drastic — can be done any time from December through February, so you can work around some of the blossoms.

Eventually, you will have to sacrifice some of the blooming roses and put them in indoor vases.
Experienced rose growers keep records of how long each variety goes between flushes of bloom. This can be 30 to 45 days. One grower I know times her winter pruning to have full bloom on Easter weekend.

Pruning is necessary, first to rid rose bushes of any diseased, dead or weak wood, and then to clear the plants of any crowded or crossing branches. Roses should have an open-arms shape from their base.

Pruning also encourages new growth, lets more light into the center of each plant and reshapes them to keep them strong and healthy. Pruning also sometimes can save a sickly plant by reducing the amount of top growth the roots need to nurture.

Growers differ somewhat in procedure, but there are general rules that apply to all kinds of roses.

• Always use a sharp, clean, hand-held pruner and a small pruning saw to trim them, perhaps also a lopper.

• Wear gloves and your most thorn-resistant clothes.

• If you are cutting diseased wood, dip pruners between cuts in a bleach solution, or spray bleach on them with a small hand sprayer.

• Keep mostly thumb-sizes - canes or larger. Remove pencil-thick growth.

• Don't drop rose prunings to the ground. Put them at once into a plastic bag or container, and burn them or put them into the garbage, not the compost pile.

• All year long, watch for and remove any suckers that come from below the graft point. These come from the rootstock and have a different leaf pattern, grow more quickly and could take over with inferior blooms. If you break these off by hand rather than by cutting, you will remove all basal buds.

• Spring pruning can reduce the size of a mature rose plant by a third; some people say by as much as one half. But remember, you are cutting off the plant's food factory, so don't overdo it.

• As you shorten canes, find buds or nodes on the stem, and pick one that will produce new growth toward the outside rather than the middle, then cut on a slant just above that bud.

• When you remove a whole cane, cut as close as possible to the cane it's growing from.

• Stand back between cuts and consider the remaining canes.

• It is now considered unnecessary to treat cuts. If they are on a slant, they will shed water and heal on their own.

Your rose bush will look very different after you finish pruning it, but it will soon be putting out new growth. It can take up to eight weeks, but the blooms will be larger, lovelier and more abundant, and your plant will be stronger and last longer.

Different kinds of roses need a bit of different pruning. All roses grow taller in Florida than they do up north, partly because we don't have to cover them for months every winter. Grandifloras tend to grow taller than teas, but remember the one-third to one-half rule.

With climbers, the oldest canes will have the darkest color. The newer green canes will produce the laterals for bloom, so as needed cut out some of the oldest, darkest canes.

Throughout the year, every time you pick a rose or prune away deadheads, do a little reshaping or cutting back if necessary.

Today's Pick

If you have roses, and even if you don't, you need a silver dollar eucalyptus, E. cinerea. This is one of my favorite plants, even though I have killed more than I've grown. I had one that lasted for 15 years and got almost 30 feet tall, too tall for picking. I will prune to prevent that in the future and keep the limbs within reach. This is one of those plants that needs constant light pruning because it is the new growth that has the beautiful bluish-silver color. That is not difficult, because it is one of the loveliest foliages for bouquets and makes a good dried bouquet all by itself. It has a fragrance that some people don't like, but I like it very much. The plant can be grown as an evergreen tree, from which you shorten any growth that threatens to get too tall, or as a shrub by hard pruning every spring. Other than that, prune for balance.

Now's The Time To ...

• Try to root cuttings from the rose stems you cut off. I have mixed success with this, but they have given me some very nice plants. Rooted cuttings are not has hardy as grafted plants, but if you can get them free, you may not care.

• It seemed like the least I could do to water the plants well after the shock of pruning and add a nice layer of mulch.

• Old garden roses need less drastic pruning. Try to keep a balance between new growth and healthy old growth.

Upcoming Events

On Feb. 4 at 2009 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. master gardener Eileen Hart will present a program on Camellias at the Bloomingdale Regional Public Library, 1906 Bloomingdale Ave., Valrico. Hart does a hands-on program about the history of Camellias and the general culture, as well as propagation. She will have a demonstration on air-layering, and since she is involved in Camellia shows and judging, she will talk about show requirements. All will go home with a Camellia blossom. For more information, call (813) 685-1055 or email vernald@verizon.net.

Monica Brandies can be reached at monicabrandies@yahoo.com.

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