The point of dis-budding a new young bush is so that it will concentrate it's energies on building a bigger root ball. In that respect then, yes, it should give you a bigger, healthier plant in the long run. I personally never do it myself because my season is so short and I want to see them bloom! It may take them a year longer to mature because of it but I grow roses for the blooms not the leaves.

When I prune in the spring I will take off thin canes in favor of the thicker ones. Once they've started to grow and bloom I no longer do that. I leave them, let them bloom and when I dead head I'll cut them back to a thicker branch if the bloom on the cane nodded because the cane was too weak to hold it up. But I only cut back as far as needed to a sturdier branch.

I think many of us agree here that disbudding a young rose will help it to channel that energy into building branches and leaves, although a vigorous rose may not need that treatment.

As far as cutting thinner canes is concerned, that may be true of modern hybrid teas, probably the roses your grandmother is most familiar with, but older roses like chinas and teas rely on the masses of thinner canes they put out to grow and bloom. Even with them a good trim every 3-5 years may have a beneficial effect on them, or at least that's been my experience with teas and chinas. The situation may be different in cooler climates. Old roses that are small and struggling probably won't benefit from having their thinner canes cut out and it may even kill them. All roses are not created equal, and it may be best to inquire here about each individual rose that you're thinking of pruning.

Ingrid

I think your grandma gave you good advice but there is more to say on the matter.
I don't bother disbudding any roses off of a bush that is taller than 2 feet tall. By then the root ball is usually well established and I've seen no advantage to disbudding.
I root rose cuttings and for those very small plants that are still less than a foot tall, I do disbud plants during the first bloom cycle. .

Most roses sold in North America are two year old plants that have been grafted onto rootstock which is already mature when the plant is sold. If your plants are such rosebushes I would see no reason to dis-bud unless a rosebush is own-root and less than a foot tall.

Most classes of rose that bloom in cold climates that bear medium to large rose blossoms, including Hybrid Teas and Hybrid Perpetuals, bloom on canes that are the thickness of a pencil. A general rule of pruning is to cut back any cane that is thinner than that, I would say about a fourth thinner or more. if the cane has already bloomed, I would just cut back to the thicker part of the cane.

Luxrosa

Disbudding for the first several months will certainly promote somewhat faster growth. However, I would leave the weak stems alone until the plant has grown to decent size, because the leaves on those stems are helping to feed the plant. After that, it depends on the variety's habit of growth. Some are naturally twiggy. With others, you prune in spring to a self-supporting framework of main canes.

I've also seen mention here of another factor: identification. If you've just purchased a new rose, it does seem sensible to let at least one flower bloom, just to be sure you've got the variety you think you've got.

Disbudding a new/young plant to encourage growth may be a myth.

Look at it this way. A flower is nothing but a reproductive organ designed to attract pollinators. (The painter Georgia O'Keefe knew a lot about this, .... but, ahem, that's a topic for another forum). A lot of energy goes into making the flower. Undifferentiated cells at the tip of the growing stem suddenly become highly differentiated: some become sepals, others flowers, stamens, pistils, pollen, ova, etc., etc. That's a lot of energy going into the metamorphosis.

When the bud is cut off, the "growing phase" which had stopped and diverted energy into the heavy-lifting reproduction phase, is now in "shock" (so to speak) and does not resume new growth to make another reproductive attempt for a while. In other words, the plant has to "re-qroup."

If allowed to blossom, the plant will move into additional "reproductive" mode when it realizes the flower is not being fertilized, or, when it discovers that any seed that has fertilized is not maturing. In other words, dead heading spent blooms encourages the plant to continue it's mission of producing flowers without let up; indeed, dead heading spent blooms encourages more rapid flower production than allowing nature to take its course by allowing seed formation (i.e., rose hips).

Put simply, don't cut off the forming buds before they bloom, cut off the spent blooms before seeds set in the hips.

One year I was the local rose society President and I was WAY too busy to deadhead a repeat blooming Moss rose. I found out that year that NOT deadheading resulted in blooming ALL summer rather than the huge early summer flush and a mild fall rebloom. The bush did NOT bloom heavily all summer but it always had at least one bloom to sniff.

This rose was Soupert Et Notting and it did not ever set hips which may have contributed to it reblooming when I quit dead heading since even though it never set hips it never had it's branches/canes cut back.

David ...

"Put simply, don't cut off the forming buds before they bloom, cut off the spent blooms before seeds set in the hips."

Based upon personal experience in dis-budding my whole garden for about 5 weeks annually to keep rose curculios from breeding in the garden, I disagree.

I have found that the continued dis-budding actually helps the plant put on more foliage and the roses push even more buds than usual. When I finally stop dis-budding, the mass of blooms is even greater than the first flush of blooms.

The curculios are above ground for about 2 months, since they are not breeding in my garden, they have to find it. It generally takes them about 4 weeks to find the garden. As soon as I see the first curculios, I start the dis-budding and continue to dis-bud the roses every night until the end of June.

True, dis-budding will not make a weak rose become a strong rose. That's in the plant's lineage. However, I have had several years to observe roses of several classes in the garden and have found that dis-budding does impact the growth of the roses.

Some people think this is a drastic method of controlling the weevils, but I would never have a first flush if I didn't do this.

The mass of bloom when I stop dis-budding is always a joy. Except this year we are in triple digit temps and many of the blooms fry quickly.

Smiles,
Lyn

I think your grandmother was talking about other flowers, not antique roses.

We cut back other plants all the time to get better growth, and a good display of the plant.

Antique roses come to us quite small and often own root. I do not really prune these roses for a couple of years, but to the best of my ability, I "snap" spent buds. These roses need to build good roots, and they need water when other roses do not.

I used to spend quite a bit of time clipping off the twiggy growth that china roses put out, but I believe that Jeri J. said they are needed to support the roses.

Often the care we give a rose depends upon whether it is antique or modern -- or own root or grafted.

My comments are specifically for older, own root roses. Modern ones may have other requirements.

Sammy

Disbudding some of the buds will result in larger blooms. Exhibitors do this regularly on Hybrid Teas and other roses to get that one large bloom. By removing side buds, all the energy goes into the one bloom. Also, some categories the roses have to be one bloom, disbudded. The earlier you do it, the less of a 'scar' it will leave. That scar can cost you points in a show.

Disbudding and deadheading lower down a cane = less but larger blooms. No disbudding and cutting just the spent blooms = many more but smaller blooms. That's a general rule applicable to most any rose and many other flowering plants also.
Nik

The OP was not talking about reducing a cluster to a single bloom, but about removing all flower buds when they are small in order to promote faster growth on a young plant.

And it DOES promote faster growth. If you pinch out a growth tip, whether or not it has a flower bud, a new growth bud will appear in an upper leaf axil in about two weeks. If, on the other hand, you don't pinch out the flower bud, the same stem will take three or four weeks to finish flowering and then two more weeks to produce a growth bud.at an upper leaf axil (ball parking these numbers, obviously). Flowering and fruiting takes energy that would otherwise go into making stems and leaves. In turn, more leaves produce energy for further growth.