In an old USDA Home and Garden Bulletin entitled Roses for the Home, a discussion of pruning begins with the statement, "If roses are not pruned, they soon grow into a bramble patch, and the flowers are small and of poor quality." That's a pretty good description of what happens, and makes the point that pruning is one of the most important practices in rose culture. The following information, given to me by rose expert Annette Dobbs, briefly covers some of main points of pruning one of America's favorite flowering plants.
A rose is pruned in order to renew the plant, remove crossing branches, train the bush to grow the way you want it to, and to open up the center for air circulation. Old canes that are no longer producing roses are cut completely off. It's important not to leave stubs that may decay.
Suckers that grow from the rootstock below the bud union should be pulled off. Or, remove soil from the base of the plant and cut the suckers off close to the rootstock. If you miss a living bud, the sucker will grow back. A sucker is entirely different from the budded bush in size of leaves, bloom and sometimes even leaf color.
Prune hybrid teas, grandifloras and floribundas to leave 3 to 5 strong canes in a vase-shaped configuration, with the center of the bush open. Cut tall canes back to a lateral branch growing in the direction you want. Prune to an outward facing bud if the bush grows too upright. If the bush sprawls outward, prune to an inward facing bud to make the bush more compact (an example of a rose variety that sprawls is 'Tropicana'). Avoid injuring the bud you want to grow by making your pruning cut about 1/4-inch above the bud. If your rose bush is very tall (6 or 7 feet), cut the canes back to one half their length. Otherwise, do not shorten the canes by more than one third. Prune out lateral branches that have diameters smaller than that of a pencil. New growth from small diameter branches will be even smaller, and eventually the puny branches will not be able to support the blooms.
Prune miniature roses back by about one half and remove much of the small diameter twiggy growth. Landscape rose varieties may be hedged or left unpruned, although rejuvenation pruning or removal of older stems every two to three years will renew plant vigor.
Old rose varieties that bloom only once on one-year-old canes should be pruned after bloom. This will stimulate vigorous new cane growth during the current season, which will then bloom the following spring. Climbing roses should be pruned similarly, just after flowering, in order to stimulate the growth of new lateral branches on which next year's flowers will be borne.
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