Prune roses in February

By Audrey Post
MS. GROW-IT-ALL®

It’s February, and that means it’s time to prune roses here in our corner of the gardening world (USDA Zone 8b). The general rule is to prune around Valentine’s Day, which was last Saturday, but we still have a few weeks to get the job done before the big flush of spring growth begins.

As with any task, gathering the right tools make the job much easier. You’ll need sharp hand-pruners and loppers. You’ll need to wear gloves, too. I suggest getting long gloves that cover your forearms as well as your hands, because rose thorns hurt. If you can’t find long gardening gloves, use long fireplace gloves.

Make sure your cutting tools are sharp and clean. If you don’t want to sharpen your tools yourself, local garden centers can either sharpen them for you for a fee or direct you to a business that offers tool-sharpening. Once your tools are sharp and you’re ready to begin, clean and disinfect them with a bleach solution (1 cup of bleach to a gallon of water) and keep a bucket of fresh bleach solution handy, in case you encounter diseased canes on your roses.

First, identify any dead or diseased canes and remove them back to the ground, dipping your cutting tool in the bleach solution between cuts. Then, from the remaining canes, identify which ones are younger and which ones of the older ones can be removed.

As you’re deciding which canes to remove, be mindful of the overall shape of the bush and the direction you want each cane to grow. For younger, healthy canes on bushes that have been pruned annually, remove oldest canes, usually two or three, and cut back the younger canes by about half.

For bushes that haven’t been pruned annually, remove the really old canes – they’re tough and gnarly; you’ll recognize them. Cut back the remaining canes back to half their length. Then cut a third of those back farther, to about a third of the length they were before you began. Make cuts at a 45-degree angle just above a bud or “eye,” making sure the bud is pointing outward from the plant. Next year, identify the canes that didn’t get the most severe cut this year, and cut half of those back to one-third. The following year, do the rest. That’s the “rule of thirds” for rejuvenating roses and many other shrubs.

Remember that keeping the plant to a reasonable size is only part of the reason for pruning. You also want to open up the inside of the bush to light and air circulation. Remove any canes that cross back into the bush, as well as any of the twiggy branches that are smaller than a pencil in diameter. Remove any foliage that remains on the plant.

If any suckers have sprouted below the graft, break them off flush instead of cutting them. That way, you’ll get the basal bud, too.