prairiemoon2: Excellent expression of the spring pruning dilemma in regions remote from idyllic southern costal California.

Prairie, I leave mine and love the larger natural shapes the roses make. You can always prune off dead canes later. You can let the plant decide if it is done with a cane. The shapes look really graceful and you may get more blooms.

The Rose Forum, never disappoints! Wow, such great information. Each comment has given me just what I was looking for and what I needed. The sun is coming out this morning, we're past a cold snap at least for the moment, and we are behind in clean up. After a tough week, we are looking forward to spending a leisurely morning in the garden and pruning the roses is number one on the list! So great timing for all this helpful advice from experienced rose growers. Thanks very much for sharing your knowledge and experiences.

P.S. After reading this over, has to be the best most detailed advice I've read. I feel so much better prepared to get out there and get the job done. And to try to get the effect I want too.

I need to print some of this out and tape it next to where I hang my pruner.😀

Based on where you are, and where I am, I'd guess you are about a week too early. Cutting off obviously dead wood is fine any time, but cutting for size and shape now means you may be cutting off good canes that you wish you could stick back on in a month. Canes that look good now are capable of turning brown and wilting in a few weeks

BTW, I always prune my once bloomers in the spring. It is a lot easier to see what you are dealing with. In fact, I don't know anyone here who has more than one or two who doesn't do the major pruning in the spring.

MadGallica - How do you judge the time to start? As I start to see new growth picking up speed, I always think that I'm allowing the plant to put it's energy into growth that I'm going to be cutting off, and it will have less energy and vitality, having wasted that. Doesn't the rules you apply to all shrubs apply, to prune when dormant?

I pruned 3 roses today and happy with the way they look, but next year I'll wait longer, thanks. I still have a fence full of climbers to prune and one shrub rose that is shaped like a standard and one of the needed canes has new growth on it but it has some ugly joints and some damage and to me, it looks like it's going to need to be removed, which is going to ruin the structure of the standard shape. I guess I'll have to cut it back more and do more shaping than I planned. And I don't have any once bloomers.

Does applying fertilizer [compost/alfalfa meal] wait until you are sure the cold nights are behind us? You don't want to spur new more vigorous growth for it to only be damaged by a couple of cold nights, right?

Jumping on PR same thead which might be helpful for PR and also me....

Main stem. When you prune it, with roses, do they have apial dominance. Aka, once you prune it, you will never see height growth of that stem ever, and not the height is acheived by the sideshoots since the apial domiance has been removed

Prairie, early is OK because vigorous growth waits for more light and heat to start.

Well, I had written a long post, but the cat deleted it. Here's the short version.

The usual recommendation on when to prune roses is when the forsythia blooms. We are about 2 weeks away from that. The problem with pruning too early is you don't know what is what. Healthy looking canes can be riddles with canker, and die off. Brown canes can produce strong, healthy growth. You don't know until they start growing. Some people do a preliminary pruning, where they cut off the obviously dead stuff, then a second pruning a few weeks later.

Most modern roses are marginally hardy caning shrubs, where the canes have a indeterminate, but finite, lifespan. You can't assume a cane is alive and healthy until it prove it to you.

Cat seems to have decided it is nap time.

Organic fertilizers, like alfalfa, aren't accessible to plants until microbes digest them. This takes a certain amount of time and heat. So theoretically, you could apply them in January, and unless there was an unseasonably long warm spell, they would just sit there until spring, and become available about the same time the plants need them. So it is hard to apply organics too early in the spring. OTOH, they can be problematic at the other end. If you apply them in early September, and it takes a few weeks for the nutrients to become available, you are effectively applying fertilizers when you do want the roses to start shutting down.

A1an, I'm not sure I understand the question. Rose canes will grow to a preprogrammed height, then stop. Side shoots can grow past that, but the main cane will not keep growing indeterminately, whether it is pruned or not. Also, if you prune the tip of the cane, you are removing the growth bud located there.

Rose pruning noob. Canes from the ground up, most of the guides seem for shrub roses is to prune them at 12-18 high (whatever desired height) to a outward facing bud. Wasn't aware that a flower bud also formed at the tip and not the -side bud eyes-. That's what I've been doing on pruning since I recently started growing roses.

Re the height, I was was clarifying do roses have apial domiance. If you prune like I have, leaving a foot and a half of cane in height, does it stop growing -higher- next season, as the apial dominance is removed and the -side shoots- is where all the growth happens. I guess I will know this year as I wanted to test I cut one of the older barkier stems low...couldn't even spot bud eyes on the. Shoots have emerged.......I guess I will see if this one stem I cut low will grow taller over the season or will growth only occur from the new shoots

I love pruning time!! @prairiemoon2 z6b MA im like you and prune as soon as the rose has started to push some grow. we had 3 days with temps in the 20s, i had very little damage.

Standard before

After

@a1an i could not undesrtand all your techincal terms lol! but to me the rose will do what ut wants to do. i have a bliss parfuma and no matter how short I prune, the side shoots go back to 4ft. i have started pegging the ones that like to be tall

OK, A1an, I think I understand the question. Yes, if you cut back the main cane, the laterals will start growing up, and become at least at tall as the main cane was. Roses are going to be as tall as they want to be, and it is hard to keep them under that height, particularly if you want them to bloom well. Many roses (Westerland, I'm looking at you) don't bloom well if they aren't allowed, either by human pruning or weather pruning, to get the size they want to be.

Interesting, it seems that there may be more than one way to do it. I wonder if anyone has tried it both ways to compare the results? Either pruning as early as they see new growth beginning, or waiting for the forsythia to bloom. I see advantage to both I guess.

Good to know that I can add compost and alfalfa as early as I like, just not in the fall. Sometimes you want to get jobs out of the way when you have time, before you get busy or forget to do something.

CeresMer - We had 3 days of overnight temps in the low to mid 20s too. Your standard is a lot fuller than mine. Mine is a shrub rose that accidentally turned into a standard last year, when I was left with one main cane.

Then I have to start pruning climbers and this year, I’m not looking forward to it, because they are on a low 4ft fence and I decided to also grow a honeysuckle on the fence with it and I’ve figured out that was a mistake. I will start a new thread when I end up with questions on that.

Thanks again for all the help, everyone.

I was reminded of what happened with this shrub rose last year. The name of it is Prairie Sunrise and it's always been a good producer and healthy. Last year I noticed I started to see some wilting but it was only on this one cane. Which I agreed to remove and sure enough from the cut end of the cane, you could see it was a problem. Here's what it looked like after the bad cane was removed and it went into the winter that way. I barely pruned it because it appeared to have growth very high on the canes, developed a problem with one of the canes and I was advised on this forum that the cane might have been dead and sure enough that is how it turned out.

I had to cut the cane back to the ground. You could see by the inside of the cane it was more or less dead. Because I took that to the ground, I had only one cane left and that is what turned into a standard.

Here is the cane I took off....

And the cut end of that cane

This year I have the choice to continue with the standard shape or cut one main cane back to the ground and see what I get. But I do have a cane that looks like I should take it off, that will leave a big gap in the top of the standard. I’m going to take a photo of it this morning.

Here is a photo of the two problems I see with a cane that produces about 1/3 of the standard's top. Did I do something wrong to cause these two problems with the cane?

MG -

Re: the height statement, Yes, I have observed this as well.

Last year, after 1st flush, I cut back hard - as I like the rounded squatter look.

Still came roaringback with 3' + growth on the second flush

Borers can do that Prairie. Look up rose borers.

Thanks Sheila, I will. But looking at the sad state of that cane, it does have to come off, right?

Oh No Shelia. Did you have to bring up rose boreres :-)

I was looking at the -tipped- end of my new standards and was just thinking about the weak spot....A single borer (if coming in from the top) has the possibility to bring the whole -thing- down, if it goes from top and works it's way into the stem

Prairie, I cut the cane off if it dies but leave it if it still acting normal. Some canes carry on valiantly at least for a while.

My Birthday Girl has three strong canes about 2.5' tall but I had to remove one of them down to the ground because of borers damage. Now it's in a very unbalanced shape. Hoping for new stems to grow this season.

Ahh wow! at least you got a standard rose?! i love them

This was my Mary rose last year. she was in a pot, so wasnt her best. i think this yea will be her year!

1st standards this year. Not super impressed so far. Stems on them are thin and only about 3 inches long. Only 2 stems I think are longer. Some stems have buds showing...but a good handful of them have shoots that are going to rub/cross on existing stems. Your MR looks great !

Depending on how it grows, I think I might leave these alone for 2-3 years unpruned, TBD - based on growth. Just wan't really expecting 3-5 inch long stems off the main leader. And thin too. Was expecting something similar in how I get their shrub roses. The quality of the main leader is weird. One of them is 2X thicker than the other standard I got. If both were of the same diameter, I wouldn't have noticed how much -smaller- in diameter the skinnier leader stem is

@Moses, Pittsburgh, W. PA., zone 5/6, USA

Moses: does your advice on pruning to at least pencil thickness stand in the case of a grandiflora budded rose with no overwintering survivor at least pencil thickness?

I guess I wasn't that early, I see the Forsythia are blooming today. Plenty still to do.

I managed to prune my standard Prairie Sunrise this morning. I took off that branch with the two damaged joints and I tried to shape up the rest of the top. I don't think it's going to look that bad and there's a lot of new growth all the way to the tips of the branches. A little compost and alfalfa meal and hopefully it has a good season.