Need help with your Rose Garden

First let me say that I am sorry this months Everything Roses Monthly is a couple days late. I have been pruning Roses from Sun up until Sun down most days and I am just now about to wrap it up.  We should be done with all but mine by the end of the week.  I hope you to have bit your lip and pruned your Roses down as if the winter was normal.  If that is not the case then be sure to read "Why We Prune" below.

 

I know, the Rose Bushes are really big and they have set buds and some of them are ready to open.  It must be OK not to prune them this year?  Wrong!

Before Spring Prune

After Spring Prune

When the Winter was mild and the Roses don't even lose all of last years leaves.  When the buds come early in the Spring because of unseasonable warmth.  We all have the urge to call it great and dispense with the Spring prune.  Yes even yours truly has the urge to leave them alone.  After all they are so beautiful.  The problem with that line of thought is that we are not seeing the entire picture.  Underneath all of that growth is a mess.  Dead canes, disease, damaged, crossing canes and a plethora of tiny canes closing up the center of the bush which prevents air from passing through which promotes disease and makes it impossible to get pesticides in.  Beyond that you must remember that the bush is going to grow this season and if it is 5 foot tall now,  how tall will it be at the end of this season providing that by some miracle you keep it healthy and free of disease?  Who wants to deadhead off a ladder?
Do you need another reason to go ahead with the pruning?  Have you noticed that there seems to be more buds than ever before in the Spring.  Yes there is and for that reason the blooms coming from those buds will be smaller than usual. But what the heck, don't we all want overgrown, diseased bushes with small blooms?
Yes the bottom line is that the bushes still need to be pruned.  That doesn't mean that you must cut every thing back to the ground.  It does mean that you must follow the 4 D's and remove anything that is Dead, Damaged (or crossing), Diseased, or Dinky.
Just one more thought before I end.  When pruning your bushes this Spring you will notice that there are new canes growing tall among all of the growth.  These canes grew up inside this mess of small, tangled canes and because of this they had to grow tall to reach the Sun but because of the support that they gleaned from the crowded bush they were not allowed to flex in the breeze and gain strength.  Therefore, after you expose them, many of them will break off in the wind.  That is OK.  They will grow back!  Just cut them off cleanly if they break and be patient. 

 

I would suggest that if you haven't started your scheduled spraying that you start immediately.  Use the Roses inc. Special no spot formula along with an insecticide/ miticide.
And did I mention that all of this will work only if your rose bushes were pruned properly?

 

Before we start pruning our climbers we must recognize what type of climbing Rose we have.  This is a critical step because we can stop our climber from ever blooming if we prune the wrong type and the wrong time.  Climbers that only bloom once each year, (non-recurrent bloomers) must not be pruned until after they bloom each Spring. That is because they bloom on old wood. Among these roses are Dr. Huey, Lady Banks and many others.

With that exception out of the way lets get down to the job at hand. Pruning Climbing Roses can be a somewhat daunting task if you do not follow a few basic steps. Large flowered recurrent blooming roses are pruned using the same basic steps as the bush roses.  Yes, DEAD, DAMAGED, DISEASED and DINKY as always is in play.
The big difference with climbing roses is that you leave 4 to 6 green to the ground canes long enough to reach the top of what ever it is that they are climbing and at that point make a terminal cut so the side branches will develop.  I see so many Rose bushes that have been pruned so that they have large bark covered canes at their base.  At best the leaving of such canes should be a temporary situation.  You must remove bark covered canes from any bush you prune and climbers are no different.  If the bush has been neglected in this way and canes with bark is all you have than you will need to remove them in stages.  Cut one off at the ground each year until they are all gone.  As you do this the bush will sprout new canes to take the old woody canes place.  Your bush will live and be healthy, producing many beautiful blooms each year for a very long time if you keep the old wood removed.
Now that we have removed the 4 D's and made our terminal cuts it is time to add the ties for the support of the climber.  I always add the ties to the structure, especially fences before the bush needs them.   This way I can plan the shape of the climber and determine ahead of time if it will be fan, horizontal, or vertical in shape. Also by adding the ties when pruning I will have them in place, so, as I walk by admiring my bushes this year I can tie down a cane without having to go back to the house for the material.