Pruning Roses

I have 5 different roses, two of which are standard Sweet dreams and sweet memories. These two I know should be pruned in spring (March I think) and I've looked in my RHS book as how to do it and feel fairly confident however any guidance now would be a help. I have attached photos and my main question is do I cut right down to the bottom of the bare long stems. Or do I cut above where it divided into two stems above the very first cut. Hope I've describe that well enough!
However my main question is what do I do with the other three which are all in pots and quite small as you can see. Do I regard these as patio roses and therefore as is suggested in most reference books, prune now? One of them was Labelled White Patio so that should be obvious, but the other two - Raspberry Royal and Conservation are not. They are all growing vigerously now with new shoots everywhere. Any help on this would be much appreciated.

 

Hi charlie, I'm very much in favour of the newer method of pruning where by you cut all new growth down by about 2/3, but I always cut just above a node. If I were you I'd leave the branching, and cut just above. This seems to work for me, however I bow to any experts!

 

The Parks in my city gives free lessons on most things to do with gardening at the appropriate time of the year, 2 years ago in the autumn, they did one on pruning roses which I attended, now remembering they have a very large rose garden with over a 2,000 plants in, and every type of rose (climbers, standards, etc).
The one they concentrated on was the bush rose, and having so many they to not have the time to be fussy with them. Every year late autumn they walk around cutting all the bush roses down to knee height (about 20 inches), then in the spring they cut them again just above ankle height (about 8 inches).
I thought at the time that they were pruning too hard, but as their rose garden every year looks really fantastic, I gave it a go, but I was a little more selective with the second cut, I cut just above a bud, the last two years my roses looked the best I've had them for years, (I have about 20 bush roses, 10 are in the front garden) and I was even getting some great comments from people walking past.
With my patio and standard roses I was told to cut off about 1/3 in the autumn, and then about 1/2 of what is left in the spring. Hope this helps.

 

I forgot to add that in the spring they also cut out any dead wood, and any branches pointing inwards trying to make it grow like a goblet, by doing that it allows more air into the centre of the plant and stops the branches that are pointing inwards from damaging each other which can stop it feeding the branch past the point it touches.
The other thing we were told is the bigger the plant the longer it takes for the food to go from the roots to the flowers, so by keeping the plant a little smaller, you should get bigger and better flowers.
The last two years I have tried to keep mine between 3 and 4 foot hight and it seems to work for me. Good luck.

 

Winters can be quite hard up here so I go with the 2/3 cut now and a spring cut leaving 2 buds per branch. Seems to work and removing most of the autumn growth helps prevent root rock during any windy weather. For self rooted (not grafted) roses you can be even more ruthless 8 - 9" in autumn and take them almost to ground level in in spring.

Roses are pretty hardy, what they don't like is a frost - thaw - growth - frost cycle on the branches in winter so I mulch above the union for protection.

 

hello the best piece of advice i was given on pruning roses when i had to tend a rose garden was imagine they belong to your worst enemy and cut away' the rose garden looks great for that piece of advice scary i know but it works good luck :D :D

 

For my two pennyworth - autumn pruning except on ramblers is to reduce root rock over winter. So pruning on balcony needs to be keep them stable over winter. However over winter your likely to get some die back too - and that is the reason why the main pruning for the new season's growth is left for spring.

 

In a BBC2's weekly gardening prog (can't recall the name - Monty Donn - used to be Titchy!) they told about an experiment that the RHS had done with pruning roses. One bed they took a hedge trimmer to it and waited to see what would happen. The next year the show was every bit as good - if not better - than those they had pruned carefully according to traditional rules.
However, never had the courage to try it myself!

[ 07. October 2005, 01:48 AM: Message edited by: michaelmasdaisy ]

 

Many thanks everyone thats a great help, I'm going to do some pruning now except on the small and rather tender looking white patio rose and then again in the spring. I think one third and then half of whats left sounds pretty good.
Does anyone have any good top rose brand names or are they all the same?

 

Not sure what you mean by brand names - David Austin roses can be very good. However I chose my roses for colour, scent, flower, repeat flowering and most important disease resistant. Whether it by hybrid tea, floribunda, shrub, climber or rambler or indeed old rose.

One of my favourites of the old shrub roses is rose de l'hay - given to me as a rooted cutting by an old cyber friend.

 

What I meant is any particular Top Rose fertilizer or is Top Rose the actual brand name

 

Sorry missed your message - the brand I used was Top Rose- but I am not sure ifits still available. Gardening on clay I don't tend to worry too much about fertilisers - just Roseclear in the initial stages to keep aphids, and black spot at bay - but any good alrounder like osmacote, should do fine.

They are greedy feeders on light soil, so maybe in addition to a slow release, a regular application of a good foliar feed would be helpful.

 

Thanks very much Fran, Ive got Top Rose so I'll give it a go

 

I have a climbing rose (white iceberg).This year i have trained it up a rose arch for support. It has now reached about a foot passed the top.
Could you advise please if/or how to prune.

 

Lovely rose coralbat - I too have iceberg but I don't grow it as a climber.

Depends what you want from it - cos ideally with a rose arch you need a rose on each side. Me I would prune it back in the spring to about 2/3 the height of the rose arch, so you can walk through with out getting snagged and remove the thin straggly growth. But beware, I have not grown roses over a rose arch - so hopefully if I'm wrong, someone will jump in.