When Do I Prune a Trailing Rosebush?

Pruning Season

• As with other roses, prune trailing roses in very late winter or early spring before any leaf buds open to reveal the new leaves. A practical gardening axiom in the U.S. is to prune your roses at the same time yellow forsythia shrubs bloom in your area. Do not prune from late summer onward, as you don't want to encourage any new sprouts before fall frosts. Removing branches too early exposes the underlying tissues to more cold and drying winds for all of winter. Often birds use the branch thickets over the winter as protective cover.

What to Prune

• While the thicket of sprawling branches on trailing roses may be too numerous to prune every year, late winter is an ideal time to look for and prune away dead or broken branches since no leaves mask them. More gardeners choose to cut back or thin out their trailing rose stems by one-half in late winter to encourage the lushest new growth and best flowering display later that spring. Remove any spindly, weak-looking branches but keep the largest branches -- those at least the thickness of a pencil. No need to meticulously clip all twigs off the main branches, just make sure to keep four to six main sprawling canes on each plant.

Summer Pruning

• The growth from trailing roses is usually healthy and robust. Whether or not you conduct some pruning of the shrubs in late winter, the sprawling thorny stems can get in the way in summer. Trim back unruly or errant canes on trailing rose shrubs as needed to prevent them from posing a safety hazard. Depending on where they grow, the long branches can become a tripping hazard or block access along the edge of a patio or sidewalk. Clip back stems so none infiltrates a lawn, as the lawn mower will rip and shred branch tips that knot with turf grass.

Equipment

• Pruning trailing roses seems more arduous since such a dense matrix of stems and twigs cloaks the ground. Walking into a bed is hazardous. Wear heavy boots, long pants, long shirt sleeves and thick gloves to prevent thorn wounds. Boots without laces pose less of an entanglement and tripping hazard. Hand pruners can readily cut main branches less than 1/2 inch in diameter. Alternatively, use lopper shears to avoid as much stooping and need for reaching into the thorny thicket. Toss clipped debris out from the area for gathering. Do not use a rake among the sprawling stems.