How to Cut & Prune Roses

Shrub Roses

• 1

  Remove dead, diseased and damaged canes from the rose plant. These canes are black, shriveled or dark brown. Use sharp pruning equipment to cut each selected cane at a 45-degree angle, 1/4 inch above an outward bud eye or swelling. Slant the cut away from the bud.

• 2

  Locate spindly canes thinner than a pencil and sever these from the rose plant, along with crossing or rubbing canes that cause abrasions on the wood and provide an inlet for disease-spreading organisms. Also remove suckers or shoots from the base of a grafted rose plant. Dig the soil around the root carefully to determine the point where the sucker originates, and cut it off at root level to prevent regrowth.

• 3

  Locate six to eight erect, healthy and thick canes to serve as the main branches of the rose bush. Ideally, you want a vase-shaped bush with an open center. Shorten the stems down to 1 to 4 feet in height. Cut the remaining stems down at soil level.

• 4

  Deadhead old or faded blooms to keep the rose plant from developing rose hips or rose fruit. Make a diagonal cut under the selected flower on the stem, directly above a five-leaf branch so it develops into a healthy cane.

• 5

  Apply a thin coating of water-soluble white glue over the exposed surface of each cut to prevent the entry of cane borers. Collect clippings from around the base of the rose and discard.

Climbing Roses

• 6

  Tie the shoots of the climbing rose to a horizontal position along a trellis or fence, or spiral them around a tower to encourage the production of laterals and blooms. Do not prune the main canes during the first season, but deadhead the blooms to prolong flowering. A new cane called a lateral cane develops from the bud where a leaf joins a horizontal cane.

• 7

  Cut a vertical lateral cane down to three bud eyes during the second season. Also prune the flowered laterals of an established climber in spring down to two to three bud eyes.

• 8

  Remove the older wood at the base of a 4-year-old or older climber to encourage new growth. Also remove crossing and damaged canes, along with suckers as soon as they appear.