Pruning bushes and trees for beautiful roses

Pruning back rose bushes and trees lets the most full and beautiful roses grow with energy spent toward them and deadwood cleared  for new growth. With just a few quick tips, you'll be able to grow show-quality roses.

Basically, the object of all rose pruning is to remove deadwood and crossed canes, to shape and thin for better circulation of air, and to encourage the production of the largest or the greatest number of flowers.

• Suckers — shoots that originate below the bud union and have different foliage — should also be removed whenever seen.
• Make all pruning cuts just above an outward-facing bud in order that new shoots will grow away from the centre of the bush and minimize crowding.

Hybrid teas, floribundas, and grandifloras should have their tops cut back by about one-third each year in spring, when the buds begin to grow and when there is no danger of hard frost. This is moderate pruning for garden display. Larger, but fewer, flowers of exhibition quality can be produced with harder pruning — as far back as three buds above the base of the stem.

Grandifloras and floribundas often develop new shoots more freely than do hybrid teas. For this reason, somewhat less pruning is needed to stimulate growth.

• Hybrid perpetuals bloom best on one-year-old wood. Each spring remove some three- to four-year-old wood at soil level, and trim new growth back to about one to 1.2 metres (three to four feet). Light pruning should be done when flowers are cut for indoor use or when dead flowers are removed.
• Miniatures and polyanthas need little pruning beyond trimming their tips back in spring, thinning, and removing weak shoots. In summer miniatures often send up some shoots much taller than the others; thin these back to maintain symmetry.

• Tree, or standard, roses, either hybrid teas or floribundas, should be pruned in the same way as bush roses, but more severely.

Shape each plant to provide a rounded head.The floribunda rose 'Iceberg' may have blossoms until Christmas; they appear in clusters on slender stems.

Blossoms of the miniature rose 'Baby Masquerade' turn from yellow through orange to rose, and all colours may be present at the same time.

• Weak varieties and thin shoots should always be cut back harder than vigorous varieties and strong shoots. Prune tree roses harder than bushes, and hybrid teas harder than grandifloras and floribundas.