Karen - I have lots of time, since I don't work...so I deadhead every time I see a spent bloom. Plus, I don't have as many roses as you do. :) I have 60 roses. Don't beat yourself up...just do what you can without stressing about it. If they don't get done, well, you'll get to them eventually. :)

Carol

I do deadheading after work at night before dark, I have 10 times roses than you, but they don’t bloom at the same time, so that makes it easier. Just think your garden is your home gym. An hour per night, you should get it done in 2 nights plus you’d have time talking to neighbors. :-)

Hmmmm...honestly I only deadhead properly if I have a gardening friend coming over. Others just don’t even notice. I will shake the aging petals off a rose if they don’t drop. That’s about it. Then I just wait until I have time and I see new shoots, and just trim it back to that. I also cut many for bouquets so that probably helps.

We see a bunch of Scentimental to deadhead, but others that don’t garden just ignore it and notice the Iceberg blooming to the right. I take the cue from them and follow suit. :-)

I deadhead spent blooms daily... I just cut under the bloom...

I deadhead twice a week, but I only have about 20 roses. I clip down to the next 5 leaved node, as I was told to by a horticulturist to do that to encourage repeat blooming! I have no idea whether that is true or not, but it gives me a consistent place to clip!

KC

I usually deadhead on a Saturday or Sunday, it’s relaxing for me and gives me a few moments to look at each rose and hopefully catch any problems.

Also... Karen I smiled when I read your description of gentle and conscientious dead heading. Only because I’m such a brute with mine! With my gauntlet gloves on, I just reach my arm into the bush and shake it around until the aging petals shake to the ground.

My gloved arm, getting ready to shake, actually looks a bit foreboding now that I notice.... ;-)

Yeah some buds or blooms snap when I do it, but my dogs run through them chasing lizards and snap them off anyways... so you know... I guess I’m just pretty chill and lax about it. :-)

I have mostly climbing roses, so I use my hose nozzle to blast the petals down. It only takes a few minutes and is good for the plant to wash any potential spider mites away. The newly formed blooms usually hang on. Karen, I wonder if this might work for your roses and if you are lucky, you might see pretty rose hips in the fall.

I bet it is quite a sight to see your 120 roses in full flush!

Jasminerose, great idea! I was wondering how to deadhead my Jacob's coat that has suddenly started blooming way above my reach!

Good, I hope that does well for you, kcandmilo. I love Jacob's Coat. I saw a mature one that looked like a graceful, colorful tree.

YIKES! How funny... I actually unexpectedly had my rose society over to my garden today... with all of those spent blooms that needed to be deadheaded! It was unexpected because we were actually touring a neighbor's house, and he's less than a mile from me. Some had come from over an hour away, so I thought I should invite them over to see my garden too since they were in the neighborhood. You know what... no one said a thing. Deadheading... bah. :-)

I only have about 40 roses so it's not too bad to manage deadheading every other evening or so. I did notice though, that Julia Child will put out new growth right below the old blooms so I have to remember to take off much less when deadheading her. What other roses to the same thing?

Oldrosarian - wow!!! That's a huge number of roses!! I couldn't handle that many. Wow!

Carol

Karen,

I dead head almost every day. The blooming season is not as long here as in a more moderate climate, so if any spent blooms are not removed quickly, the repeat on that stem is delayed.

Moses

Julia Child is the biggest pain to dead head because she is always blooming and I have four of her.

I mess with the pots on my deck every day. I usually do Julia once a week and every thing else I try to do nightly.

Lol, I'm a compulsive dead header! I do it without even thinking. I've even been known to unconsciously dead head other peoples roses. And as an amateur rose breeder I have accidentally dead headed my crosses once or twice, DUH!

Aldi has battery operated pruner for $25, that might speed up for some.

Seil - I'm also a compulsive dead header. I've deaded headed other people's roses and I've deadheaded a cross of mine too. We're rose sisters!!! LOL

Carol

Carol, If you were close by me, you could help me. :-)

I hope the new renters are gardeners. That would be wonderful.

Summer - yes, I would gladly help you. I love deadheading!! :)

Carol

Ha ha, I have actually found myself dead heading other people's roses well I'm standing there talking to them without even thinking about it. How rude it is that.

Ah - after this weekend, I am at peace. I deadheaded EVERYTHING! Took a few hours - but that was me meandering and cooing and speaking sweet nothings to the gang to encourage the next flush.

Although after I've finished a bush, I swear when I turn my back on it, it shakes like a dog after a bath, leaving more exposed heads!

Biggest PITA's to deadhead - Lunar Mist, Windermere, Crown Princess Margarita, and Golden Wings. Most fun is the exploda-carpet rose to which I do use manual hedge clippers!

I’m haphazard in my deadheading. Sometimes I’m doing it everyday, sometimes I leave them for a week or more. It all depends on how busy I am, how I’m feeling, and if I’m expecting visitors or not. I must admit, when I don’t feel like doing each of my 100+? roses, I tend to deadhead my special favorites. The roses that I love seeing bloom the most, almost always get deadheaded immediately, as each rose fades. I say, if you don’t have time to do them all promptly, just do a few favorites, or snap of the spent blooms on the roses near the front door as you enter or leave the house. Lisa

I'm with oldrosarian that with around 1000 roses I learn to have fast fingers. I have it much easier than she does though, since roses in warm climates bloom incredibly more than roses in my climate. Like Moses, I really want to see maximum bloom from the roses so I deadhead as often as I can. I do a serious round of deadheading and photo collection every weekend in blooming seasons which usually takes around 2-3 hours (see, not that many blooms in my zone), with some touchup deadheading of my favorites like Lisa mentions in the evenings if I get a walk around the garden after work. If I miss a week for some reason or another it can take most of a gardening day to catch up the next weekend, but since there's little else needing doing in the garden in peak summer hours it's an excuse to be out in the yard where I "need" to get some "chores" done and "have" to put off things like laundry (smile).

The cluster flowered bloomers like hybrid musks or Knockouts get pruned at the base of the clusters, and I do shaping pruning of the bushes later in the season if they get big enough that also speeds up deadheading a lot. Roses like Darlow's Enigma that bloom regardless of what I do don't get deadheaded at all - fortunate, being the thorny monster he is - and I'm rarely motivated to get out the ladder to deadhead the few climbers that really get beyond arm's reach in zone 5 more than once or twice a season.

Kristen, I can totally relate that I deadhead other people's roses without even noticing I do that. There are some roses with dead canes towering above live growth at one of my doctors' offices and I swear I'm going to bring my pruners next time I'm there and make them (and me) more comfortable.

Cynthia

I’m like seil, I do if every time I’m in my garden. I can’t see a spent bloom without automatically going for it. I even deadhead the roses at the garden centers when I’m shopping around. I deadhead my moms plants too whenever I visit her. I think I get it from my grandma who pulls weeds in any garden she’s visiting, including mine. Lol

however, not all roses require deadheading to bloom. I don’t bother with those that don’t produce hips too often because the dead stems usually fall off on their own. I don’t bother with ladders or anything crazy when they are out of reach, but I will pull them off if I can reach. You’ll never find hips however in my garden. I will pull off ant forming hips. I don’t want them wasting energy on making fruit.

I only dead head when a roses I'm wanting to cross are refusing to bloom at the same time.

I'm still at the point where I also collect amd sow OP seeds along with intentional crosses. Just to see what comes out things/learning.