I don't know much about teas _personally_, I'm not really in the zone for them, but I have heard, and read, that tea roses shouldn't be pruned much (if at all), and do best when they are enormous...

This is something that I have seen during my relatively short (14 years) experience with growing teas, Melissa, and I've adopted the view, for the most part (except where I needed to protect a path and other plants' rights), that it is a natural pattern of growth that will repair itself, over time, if allowed to run its course. I, too, ran around trying to shore up major parts of the shrubs with all sorts of contrivances in my earlier years of growing them, but also sometimes pruned. Contrivances for support inevitably fail, so one must either opt for the natural approach or start cutting, from what I have seen.

What happens after a big tea falls open like that, exposing the center to sunlight, is that the gaping hole created by large branches lounging toward the ground gets filled by new growth sprouting up in the center. This can take a year or two, though, requiring averting the eyes or some such to the odd-looking bush in the meantime. Mme. Antoine Mari, Rhodologue Jules Gravereaux, and Mrs. B.R. Cant all reached this stage here and self-repaired like that. Arcadia Louisiana Tea has just entered this phase, I've noticed in the past week or two, so it will be interesting to see if the pattern holds true there.

I first tried pruning Rhodologue Jules Gravereaux to try to keep him more shapely, but found I didn't like the branching patterns that created, so reverted to letting him go. Several years later, he's becoming a nice-looking bush again. I suspect Arcadia Louisiana Tea might be of the same type.

Other teas, like Souvenir de Pierre Notting and Etoile de Lyon (in my experience), and, according to accounts given by Dr. Manners, Mrs. B.R. Cant, seem to take pruning okay. Mme. Antoine Mari also responded okay to a "pruning" created by a violent thunder storm.

I do not prune my tea roses, unless to keep them off the driveway or from blocking paths. What they do here is, they build up a sort of underneath support structure of (gasp!) dead wood. I used to climb under them and take it all out, but then they would collapse. Because the growth pattern is like chinas - canes coming off each other at odd angles, eventually the produce a sort of scaffolding underneath themselves, and then become large self supporting shrubs. Or, if they are next to the house, I treat them as climbers, and tie them up the wall.

Jackie

Interesting jacqueline. I did have to remove some large branches from my former Mrs BR Cant because it collapsed under the weight of wet blooms. It did come back. Right now I'm nursing a large horizontal cane on my Clementine Carbonieri that I may have backed into with my car (it's across from my side entry garage and I usually back out and do a 3 point turn). But it's still alive and blooming. I have patched it with duck tape! I now have 2 new Mrs. BR Cants on either side of the drive and I've hopefully given them enough room so I won't have to do too much pruning for size. I will think about leaving dead wood on the bottom. Like you I used to lay under the big teas and take out all the dead wood. I would love to not have to do that anymore!!!!

This will raise some ire, I daresay, but I pruned Mrs DC in her second year, as the growth was so lop-sided, and she put out lots of new growth and did very well. You may have read that I cut her to the ground because of die-back a couple of years later, poisoned her, never got around to digging her out, and she has sprouted vigorously.

I've read an article in our OGR journal by a woman who became friends with someone, who didn't know you shouldn't prune Teas hard. She had shapely shrubs with lots of large flowers!

But I'm very tempted by the idea of leaving all that dead wood. Removing it from under 2 large Marie van Houttes is a bloody business!

Probably everyone's conditions make for different approaches. HOWEVER ... In my conditions, pruning Tea Roses substantially is a good way to kill them.

In my garden -- in my conditions -- with my water and growing season -- Teas do best FOR ME if I restrict my clippering to deadheading lightly after a flush of bloom, and removing excess dead wood every few years.

This was definitely the year. We had losses last summer, from heat and watering system malfunctions, coupled with physical restrictions. Rehabilitating things on the hillside has resulted in a need to remove a lot of dead wood, and allow well-developed roots to push new growth.

Overall, though, I have killed a couple of Tea Roses (including Mutabilis) years ago by pruning them the way ARS folks insisted I must prune them. So, I don't do that no mo. I have had a couple of other folks tell me that they also had killed Teas that way.

No matter what approach I take, blooms will be smaller here when the worst of the summer heat hits ... or nonexistent. And my Teas definitely bloom their best in cool-to-chilly weather. Other than that, I haven't seen a marked difference in bloom size resulting from any approach to pruning.

The Mrs. B.R. Cant that I pruned substantially because it had so much dead wood has not really bounced back, although I have a feeling it would have if we had had substantial rains this winter instead of very little. Contrary to Jeri's experience, I pruned back Mutabilis by at least half because it had declined substantially, which incidentally caused me to find the gopher hole which no doubt contributed to the decline. It bounced back very well, but that was before the drought, and it's not something I would recommend doing very often. They may forgive it once, but over and over would be a mistake.

I think you're right, Ingrid. PERIODICALLY pruning them can be advantageous. (Though I think, in my climate, pruning things down by half would risk killing them.) But systematically pruning them hard -- year after year -- has not worked well, where I am.

HERE, shortening healthy canes (for an example) results in shorter, weakened, dying canes -- in my conditions. So -- if it is live, and healthy, I don't cut it off.

By contrast, this year I am seeing that many plants have had a lot of blind growth. I think that's probably attributable to the continuous rapid temperature fluctuations. I've just spent an hour or so removing some of that.

Jeri, my experience has been pretty much like yours when it comes to pruning. I planted several of my tea roses in too-small spaces and repeated pruning of my teas has resulted in terrible looking bushes and drastic pruning on my hybrid musks and chinas has resulted in sulking plants that lack vigor. In cases where I have had to prune heavily on one occasion, the roses have bounced back pretty well, but repeated or hard pruning has yielded poor results for me.

Molly

Yup.

Yesterday, we were talking about moving an old garden bench from where it's been sitting.

I said: "Maybe, we could put another rose there!"

To which, DH replied: "No. We're not planting any more roses 2.5 ft. apart."

He is, of course, absolutely right. It just never works. (Not for us, anyhow.)

Curious what difference climate must make. I've had to prune my Mutabilis hard for 3 consecutive years (fell over in a storm, plumber needed to relay sewer, and then because of fencing). It just keeps going. And I was at the garden of someone who grows old roses last spring, and she prunes all hers pretty hard yearly, and they looked great. Perhaps it's the combination of warmth and wet here. Things do grow like topsy.

I'm trying to square what I'm reading here with my own experiences, and it's not working too well. I do appreciate all these responses: thanks, folks! As titian1 says, everybody's conditions are different. I'll try to sum up what I've found to be true in my garden in my thirteen years or so of growing Teas.

First, they need renewal pruning, complete removal of old canes to stimulate growth of new ones. We have cane girdler which weakens and ultimately breaks canes, I don't know if that's part of the reason. I've had Tea roses grow backwards on me: 'Bon Silène', 'Mme. Berkeley', 'Safrano', and I believe this is why. Also I think this is why many of my Teas haven't been thriving. I cut out old canes on them last fall and now they're putting out new growth. This is also very very true for the Hybrid Musks.

About the dead growth supporting live growth, and the Tea rose habit of growing out, and then building up: it doesn't happen here. Roses grow out but the up doesn't follow. I don't know if their getting squashed by snow in winter makes a difference in their habit. Another problem with the big lounging plants I'm fussing about now--'Mme. Antoine Mari', 6' x 10', and 'Mrs. B.R. Cant', 10' x 15', the same culprits catspa mentions--is that they're terraced on a slope, and there's no ground below them to support them. So we build supports. MAM is moving into the road; MBRC; is traveling into 'Duchess d'Auerstaedt'. Neither shows any signs of stopping or going upright on her own. Also 'Archduke Joseph' is 15' x 10', but (more or less) safely trained into the persimmon and caged on the other sides, while 'Clementina Carbonieri' has gotten one cane onto the flat ground above her terrace, and is now luxuriously sprawled among the sage planted beneath my clothes line.

Well. I think my best option is what I was talking about first: wait until the end of most of the flowering, say late June, then cut back the plants and cut out old growth, though still leaving plenty of growth. I pruned a good deal of old growth out of MAM at the end of this winter, and possibly needed to do more then. The combination of good annual rainfall, cane girdler, and heavy snowfalls, may require a different pruning regimen than American Tea growers practice.

Also -- We don't have cane girdlers. :-)
I can give all sorts of advice to my next-door neighbor. But my experiences clearly don't translate to yours. And all I know is what works HERE.

I was thinking as I tried to tame my Duchesse de Brabant, that teas are similar to Japanese Maples, the kind that are low to the ground. I'm actually going to a class on pruning Japanese Maples and I'm hoping it helps me with the Maples and maybe even the Teas.

Well, good luck! I think I'll go the cage route, at least for a while.

Both the public gardens where I volunteer lost huge plants of Mrs. BR Cant to heavy pruning (ARS style). These plants were less than 5 years old and were 8X8 or more. They simply went into a decline, then up and died.

I also see at lot of canker appearing If I'm overzealous about tidying up a bush in spring. Teas really do seem to require a very light touch.

I'd like to come up with a support like a small corral and plant a rose in the middle. Then as it grew the support would be there waiting! Columbus Park of Roses does something like that; their lax roses are planted by 3 or 4 rail fences which are at least 5 or 6 feet tall. That was y the roses, some of which are very close to the main walkway, can be kept under control.

I, too, have seen decline of heavily pruned roses in some public gardens and nurseries, but they have the luxury of digging them out and replacing them and visitors are often not even aware of the replacements because large, established rose bushes are planted in their place.

Molly

Duke Gardens has a wonderful selection of non-HT roses. This used to include Marie Van Houtte and Rosette Delizy, but they pruned them like HTs and they were always super scraggly. This year I notice they just removed them. I asked one of the folks pruning the roses about it and they said they prune "purely for looks".

I was surprised that OGRs were pruned so tightly at Roseraie de L Hay in Paris. They did not look happy, and one could get no idea of their natural habit.

Another change of mind: I caged 'Mme. Antoine Mari', cutting out old canes when I did so, and believe I'll stay with that. She looks too open but saner than before; now will she fill in? 'Mrs. B.R. Cant' may have to be allowed world domination. Hard pruning has never been an option for me.

I always enjoy your posts and this one especially hit home with me! I grow many teas and have had them unpruned and in the ground for nearly 10 years. I live in Northern Ca and they are wonderful. My Mons. Tillier was huge over 5 ft tall. I was starting to worry about its' tallness but with the wonderful rains this year after years of drought, it was spectacular! Then it started to droop at the canes and became just about 4 feet still with wonderful blooms but the center started opening up and I started to wonder-should I be pruning? I had heard Cass Bernstein speak about pruning teas, and the teas at the Sacramento cemetery are wonderful with pruning so I too am thinking --do I need to prune them? I had never had this happen before either.

Here is what I found on line http://rosefog.us/PrunedRoses/PrunedRoses.htm

but it still doesn't answer the main question. I saw this post here that is interesting: http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/1718329/pruning-teas-when-to-remove-canes-to-the-base. I still don't know what to do but might just lightly prune back and thin canes to lighten it slightly but not hard prune it. Maybe two brains are better than one. Let me and us all know what you do. Thanks for this post --I am right there with you!

Sondra aka Sonbie