Pruning roses can be a chore, but your efforts will be rewarded by a healthier, well-shaped plant that blooms abundantly and lives longer.
Pruning out dead or diseased canes helps increase airflow and sun penetration around living canes, which wards off disease and encourages more flowering.
Taking to his TikTok page @themeditteraneangardener, Michael Griffiths shared a video on how to winter prune roses the correct way.
He said: “If you want more blooms on your roses this year, it’s time to give it a prune now.”
To help gardeners do so, he’s shared five steps gardeners “need to do” to carry out the task properly.
1. Prune the dead wood
Generally speaking, this means removing the brown or black stems, which are dead, and leaving the green stems, which are living.
Of those stems, make sure to cut them back to the base to ensure all of the dead parts are fully removed.
2. Open up the centre
This essentially means taking off the crossing branches as they can rub together, causing damage and encouraging diseases.
3. Remove thin or weak growth
Michael advised, “Remove any canes that are thinner than a pencil.” This is because they will grow thin and gangly and “produce fewer blossoms.”
4. Prune the remaining canes
To prune the healthy canes, take the overall height down by one-third, cutting just above an outward-facing bud on a 45-degree angle sloping away from the bud.
The expert explained that new stems grow in the direction of the bud, and the goal is to encourage them to grow outwards.
5. Fertilise and mulch roses after pruning
Whilst not another pruning step, it is vital to maintain roses after by feeding and mulching them generously.
Michael said: “Roses are big eaters so give them a good fertiliser and mulch in the spring.”
Wait another month or when the new growth is about a one-half inch long to make my first application of fertiliser.
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