I pruned 4 in my own garden then pruned 6 of my neighbor's roses. Another neighbor came home with her first rose today!
I was actually out there 8 hours and accomplished pretty much what I planned to. Tomorrow I plant, that is if I can even move... LOL

Pruning is such a huge task for me here. I don't have to prune all 1000 plus roses, but imagine. I really do muse about it. In some ways it is easier. I'm just getting more efficient. On the other hand the roses are getting bigger and older. More and more I can see how important pruning is for my roses. One thing I've finally realized is that the task does get done every year so i don't have to fuss and think I won't get it done.
About the Mr. Lincoln: I had cut down and thought I'd dug up an Alchimyst(it was just in a bad spot). A cane that had fallen in the soil rooted and I planted it elsewhere. It's doing great. Also an Altissimo the same thing. A friend gave me big long canes of a Wichurana telling me that her dad just stuck them in the ground like that. I took her advice and they grew like crazy.
I'm glad that you are enjoying your pruning. Attitude really makes such a difference with these tasks.

Jerome----I love to come to ARF and read about all the gardening being done in the warm climates.----
We are expecting snow here tonight----but that is OK with me--I will probably be in a wheelchair for several more weeks--so I will just watch the snow fall and pray for a lovely spring flush---
I miss all my rosey friends but I will try to be here more often----

Florence

Zeffy, we know you are out here in spirit. Just pull up your wheelchair and set the parking break and have your coffee or tea while I snip and saw. You might have to remind me now and then to put my gloves back on. I pull them off to get a better grip on the weeds. We chat about roses we have grown, the good and the bad, the ugly and the beautiful, the rewarding and the disappointing. And when I am all done for the day, we go back in the house for hot lunch, maybe the soup I made the other day with some sandwiches, before you head off home again to your snowy climate.

There now, don't you feel like you have had a nice rosey visit?

Rosefolly

Rosefolly, that is lovely. Florence, I love it when you post! I was just looking at some posts from the past, and there was a photo of one of your huge ramblers to die for!

Sherry and Pam, thanks for the encouragement re: Mr. Lincoln...I think he'll make it...and much better to get him on his own roots finally.

Mary, the winds are going gangbusters here today...hope Graham and Georgia don't blow away!

Everyone...my new "Favorite Rose" of all time, for today anyway: *drum roll* MME. ANTOINE MARI. Maurizio, if you're out there, I heard somewhere it's called Madame Camille in Europe...but I don't really have a clue. Anyway it is a great rose, and manages to look good even in our lousy gale force winds. Tons of perfect foliage, blooms as much as Mons. Tillier, a real winner.

Jerome

Mme Antoine Mari has been tempting me for a long time.
Sherry

Pruning is one of my all time favorite garden tasks. I feel like I get to see the bones of the garden and I get a better sense of what I want to do in the next few months. I have all of my shrub roses pruned - just the climbers left. No problem with New Dawn, Polka and Sombreuil - but Madame Alfred, Oh my goodness! I have to get up on the roof to prune the house side of her. She's growing up a trellis and drapes over an arbor on each side of it. She covers most of the back of the house and has canes on their way to the ridge pole of the house. 3 weeks ago my husband broke his wrist and his back went out. He's recovering well but is not in a position to spot me when I'm on the roof - or to help me haul a big ladder around. And we can't manage with another broken bone in the house... So I'm considering just letting her go this year and seeing if I have a house left next year.

BettyN

Hey Jerome, I just want you to know that I ordered MAM this year because of you and Luanne. Y'all finally wore me down :-). I like to prune but right now the number of huge roses out there seems overwhelming! Once I get out into the garden, I get "in the zone" and lose all sense of time. I take forever to prune, though. After the obvious things are taken out, I prune a bit off of a rose, back up and look at it, prune a little more....

Carol

I've done some pruning here in zone 7 or 8 whatever we are this week. I took my two big climbers off their trellises, which they've outgrown. A big windstorm helped us make that decision:). Anyway, a few weeks ago we strung wire across the area. An attack of vertigo kept me off ladders for a bit, but yesterday I went out and was able to stretch out along the wires. I had to cut off most of QE and about half of Iceberg, but I think it will be worth it. The yard looks so much neater with them flat against the house instead of flopping all over the place. And we put wires all the way up to the top of the house, so we've got room to go.

When we have warm weekends like this, it's all I can do to stop myself from starting wholesale pruning. I do want to do dormant spray and I had to order the lime sulphur online, the nurseries here don't have it. So hopefully it will not get too warm and the roses will not start to leaf out too much too soon.

Jerome, I have cut off the rootstock and had success if there was a large group of own root to take over. In fact, it's nice to be able to dig out some old soil, put in some fresh soil and plant a little deeper. Looks like a whole new rose doesn't it?

Jerome, I have to say that I agree. It is surprising. You'd think that the same roses require consistent treatment, but I find it is not always so.

After losing steam on my garden I finally had a productive day today. I got a small section almost done. I say almost because it is roughly weeded but I want to come back and go over it again tomorrow. One thing I did was really overhaul my Autumn Damask, which had built up a lot of non-productive wood. It will either come back exploding with energetic growth or curl up its roots and shrivel. It is my oldest rose, planted back in 1997 when I first started planting roses in this garden. I began this garden in 1996, but the first year I just planted perennials.

Another rose I cut back really hard this year was Pierre de Ronsard, which I grow as a large shrub and not a climber. Like Autumn Damask, it had accumulated quite a bit of less-than-optimally-performing wood. I'm hoping it bursts forth renewed as well.

Rosefolly

I pruned yesterday, planted a couple of bareroots and stuck cuttings today. It was so nice when the ground fog cleared. I need to get after some huge climbers any day now...I love pruning and don't let it stress me. I love the profile of a pruned rose in the garden. So many of my roses are evergreen that they never really have that look.

I finished up my front garden today and there are now 14 roses, all placed appropriately according to size, color balance and proper planting distance. That took a lot of planning as there are sprinkler, drainage pipes and air conditioning outlet to plant around without busting anything or placing a plant too close to the ac. I was transplanting, planting potted roses I bought last year and taking others out for planting in another place. I also tried a trick I read about recently. Where I want to keep two canes on the bush but they are a little too close together, I use a piece of 4 to 5 inch piece of cut cane and use it as a spacer, sticking each end into a thorn. A cool idea.
I spent plenty of time pruning some of my roses that I did quickly last year. It always feels good to have a cleaned up and fresh looking bed with no rust, mildew or bugs. Now on to more chores!

Decided to put "Soncy" in the big gap place in the garden. It'll look nice with the surrounding colors.

Jerome

This weekend, I pruned the giant Evelyn I have climbing over my front door. I took out all the dead and twiggy wood and cut back the laterals. This is one rose I prune without fear, as last year I hard pruned it to twelve inches and it was nearly fifteen feet high again in four or five months!

I spent a good portion of Saturday weeding and pulling Bermuda grass runners, turning the the mulch and generally straightening out the garden.

I love Florida in the Winter!

Elaine

I have dozens of roses to prune, and expected to be doing it exactly now, only flu intervened. I'm waiting for my body to give me permission before I get out with my tools. Spring is beginning to pick up speed....
Melissa

Melissa, I can relate. I was felled at 4AM by flu...have not been so sick in years. Hope we both feel better soon. And you're wise: better not to push it! I'll be sending thoughts across the miles.

Jerome

Well I'll muse on "pruning bouquets", which we get here--can't possibly throw away all those flowers that the roses are still producing. So a dozen 'Belinda's Dream' and Comtesse Vandal must share a vase with a big cluster of 'Fourth Of July'. They all manage to be beautiful together. It's the time of the year when the house is full of roses. Normally I'm outside so much a bouquet inside is forgotten.