How To Prune Roses to Promote More Flowering

I absolutely love roses. These Julia Child roses blooming in my garden are beautiful and smell delicious. I love walking outside when they are in full bloom because the entire yard is perfumed by their delightful scent.

Roses are not hard to care for, but they do have some specific growing requirements.

One of the most beneficial things you can do to promote flowering for your roses is knowing when and how to prune them.

Pictured below are some indispensable tools for taking care of roses.

Elbow-length leather gloves are an absolute must when pruning roses. Also pictured: a Corona anvil pruner, Fiskars garden scissors, and Rose-Glo rose food for post-pruning application.

Note: I always clean my tools with rubbing alcohol in between uses, and often in between pruning of individual plants. This approach prevents the spread of disease.

When pruning (and cutting flowers for arrangements), find the first cluster of 5 leaves on a stem. Not 7, not 3, not 9, but 5. That’s the spot where you will make your cut.

Like this:

Make a swift, angled cut as close as you can to the base of the cluster.

Like this:

In order to achieve a clean cut, your shears must be sharp. If they are not sharp, have them sharpened, or purchase a new pair.

This photo is of one of my Julia Child rose bushes in desperate need of pruning:

I rarely allow my shrubs to get to this condition, but a blogger has to do what a blogger has to do for her readers.

Another rose shrub in desperate need of pruning:

Here’s what the same shrub looks like immediately after pruning:

I use different pruning techniques depending on the time of year. During the growing season (late March to October in Austin), I simply prune spent flowers and any diseased branches. I also remove any stems that are crossing in the middle of the plant to promote air flow.

Around Labor Day and again near Valentine’s Day, I perform what’s known as a “hard-pruning” of my rose shrubs. I take off the top third of the plant (sometimes slightly more). I don’t necessarily worry about the 5-leaf rule when performing a hard prune, but I do try to achieve a vase-like shape for my shrubs because that’s what I prefer.

Here’s a photo about 2 weeks after my mid-February hard pruning this year:

Many rose bushes display purple new growth as pictured. That’s what your flowers will grow on when it comes time to bloom.

Here’s a close-up:

And here are the exact same shrubs four weeks later in early April!

Feel free to contact me in the comments below if you have any questions about how to care for your roses!

Tags: Around Mi Casa, Around My Home, Gardening in Austin, Growing Roses, How to prune roses, Melanie Bolke, Pruning Roses