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There’s one job that matters more than any other when it comes to roses, and it isn’t complicated. It’s exactly the kind of task where the received wisdom (careful cuts, precise angles, endless deliberation) does more for your sense of achievement than it does for the rose.
I’ll say the important bit up front. Roses want cutting back harder than most people dare, and with considerably less care than the books suggest. Get that one thing straight and you’ve done ninety percent of the work.
When to prune roses
The window is roughly from once the last hard frosts have finished off any late flowers, through to just before new growth starts pushing through in spring. For most of the UK that’s somewhere between late January and early March, though the weather is a better guide than the date on the calendar. The main thing to avoid is pruning too early, while there’s still a chance of a flower or two, or too late, once the new season’s growth is already underway.
My own roses often carry a flower or two right through winter, and I can never quite bring myself to cut them back while there’s still something blooming. My secateurs itch. I leave them alone anyway, right up until a couple of hard frosts finish the job for me and the last flowers end up in tatters. That’s usually the point where I finally go in, in a fairly unsentimental mood by then.
Three questions. Two minutes. A flower list chosen for your actual garden, not some idealised one.
Let’s find your flowers.
What to wear (and what you’ll regret wearing)
If you have a waxed jacket, put it on. This is the one job where a proper jacket earns its keep.
I always start in a thick woolly jumper and spend the first twenty minutes cursing and unhooking myself from every thorn in the garden. I know this about myself. I do it anyway, every year, like I’ve never met a rose bush before. Learn from my mistakes and dress for the job.
Pruning bush and shrub roses
Harder than you think, and with considerably less thought than the guides suggest.
Here’s my honest confession, in the spirit of lazy gardening: I don’t prune my bush roses carefully. I don’t hunt for outward-facing buds or stand back to check the shape. I go in with the secateurs and I chop, and mostly I’m just glad to be doing it at all.
There was a trial at Wisley years ago where they compared a bed of roses pruned carefully and intricately by a highly skilled horticulturalist, against a bed where they simply ran a hedge-trimmer over the lot. The two beds fared pretty much the same. Same flowers, same vigour, same health.
I think about that trial every single time I’m out there, and it’s the reason I don’t feel remotely guilty about my approach. If a hedge-trimmer does the job as well as a careful hand, my slightly-more-considered-than-a-hedge-trimmer chopping is doing just fine.
Cut out anything obviously dead or diseased, take the bush down by a third or more, and don’t agonise over the rest. You are unlikely to ruin a rose by cutting it back too hard. You’re rather more likely to ruin your afternoon trying to get it perfect.
If you want to do it properly
Some people find precision satisfying rather than stressful, and if that’s you (or you’re working on a particularly prized rose), there’s nothing wrong with taking the fuller approach. Here’s the proper method:
- Start with the three Ds. Remove anything dead, diseased or damaged first. There’s no real decision-making involved, it’s coming off regardless.
- Take out crossing or rubbing branches. Where two stems cross and rub, pick the weaker one and remove it. Left alone, the rubbing creates wounds that let disease in.
- Cut to an outward-facing bud. Angle the cut slightly, sloping away from the bud, so new growth heads outward rather than into the middle of the bush. This keeps the centre open, which helps with airflow and disease.
- Decide how hard to go. For a general tidy, take the whole bush down by about a third. For an old, leggy rose that needs rejuvenating, you can be considerably braver and cut back to knee height.
- Clear the debris. Old leaves left lying around the base are one of the main ways blackspot overwinters. Rake it up and bin or burn it, rather than composting it and handing the problem back to the same plant next year.
- Finish with a mulch. Whichever method you’ve used to get there, this is the final step either way. A generous layer of well-rotted manure or compost around the base, kept a little clear of the stem itself, feeds the plant as it gears up for the growing season.
Both approaches get you a healthy rose. One just takes considerably longer and looks tidier while you’re doing it.
Pruning climbing roses
Climbers are a different job entirely, and not one you can chop back the same way. You’re not trying to shrink the plant. You’re working with a more or less permanent framework of main stems that stay in place year after year, so the job is really about tidying growth and training direction rather than starting again from scratch each winter.
The usual approach is to remove anything dead, damaged or overcrowded, then train the main stems as close to horizontal as you can get them against their support, rather than letting them shoot straight up. This isn’t really about tidiness. It’s about how the plant flowers. Left to grow vertically, a climbing rose tends to put most of its energy (and its flowers) right at the top, leaving the lower stem bare and woody. Bend that same stem towards horizontal, and side shoots break all the way along its length, and it’s those side shoots that carry the flowers. More horizontal stem, more flowers along the way, roughly speaking.
The Niff Barnes approach
There is a fancier version of the same idea, and it’s a new one for me this year.
I’ve been looking at the work of Jenny “Niff” Barnes, a head gardener known for training climbing and rambling roses into curling loops rather than tying them flat against a wall. Instead of straight horizontal lines, the stems are coaxed into swirls and cages, crossing over themselves again and again. Apparently it takes the same principle behind horizontal training, encouraging side shoots along the length of the stem, and pushes it further, since a looped stem stays closer to horizontal for more of its total length than a straight tied-in one ever could.
I’ve tried it on one rose this year. Honestly, the results were not amazing. There wasn’t much flowering along the length at all, though it was a new rose in a genuinely tricky position, so I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt for year one. It was also, I’ll admit, considerably harder than it looks to create a shape on the wall that’s actually pleasing to look at, rather than just a rose having a bad day. There’s a knack to it I clearly haven’t found yet.
If you want plenty of flowers without turning gardening into a second job, The Flower Files might be just what you need.
So: my bush roses get chopped back without much ceremony, my established climbers get trained horizontally as usual, and this one gets the loops and my full attention, because I’m curious, and because if it works, it solves a problem I’ve had with every climber I’ve ever grown. I’ll report back.
A quick checklist for whenever you start pruning roses
- Put the waxed jacket on before you start (trust me)
- Bush roses: cut out anything dead or diseased first, then chop the rest back by a third or more (or follow the fuller method above, if that’s more your thing)
- Climbers: remove dead or overcrowded growth, then train the main stems as horizontally as you can against their support
- Rake up the prunings so you’re not stepping on thorns for the next month
- Finish with a mulch around the base, whichever type of rose you’re dealing with
- Fancy experimenting with loops on a climber instead? That’s a separate, slower job
Frequently asked questions
When is the best time to prune roses?
Once frost has finished off any late flowers, and before new growth starts pushing through in spring. For most of the UK that’s roughly late January to early March, though the weather is a better guide than the calendar.
How hard should I prune bush roses in late winter?
Harder than you probably think, and you don’t need to be precise about it. For most shrub and hybrid tea roses, cutting back by a third to a half is fine, and the Wisley trial suggests roses tolerate rough pruning far better than the guides let on.
Do I prune climbing roses the same way as bush roses?
No. Climbing roses keep a more or less permanent framework of main stems rather than being cut back hard each year. Remove anything dead or overcrowded, then train the remaining stems as close to horizontal as you can against their support. Flowers come from side shoots that break along the length of a stem, so the more horizontal it is, the more of that length ends up in flower rather than just the tip.
What’s the proper, step-by-step way to prune bush roses?
Remove anything dead, diseased or damaged, take out any crossing branches, then cut remaining stems back to an outward-facing bud at a slight angle. Clear away fallen leaves afterwards and finish with a mulch around the base. It’s a good approach if you enjoy the process or you’re working on a rose you’re particularly precious about, though a rougher prune will get you a perfectly healthy plant too.
Do I need to train climbing roses in loops instead of tying them flat?
No, and it’s not the quick option. Training in curling loops (a method associated with head gardener Jenny “Niff” Barnes) pushes the same principle behind horizontal training further, since a looped stem stays closer to horizontal for more of its length. It takes patience and a fair bit of trial and error to get a shape that actually looks good. Tying the main stems flat and horizontal is still the simpler, well-established route, and a perfectly good one.
It’s a quick, slightly brutal win if you take the rough approach, or a properly satisfying one if you take your time. Either way you end up with a healthy rose. The tricky bit, as ever, is knowing exactly when your frosts are done for the season rather than guessing from a date on a calendar. That’s the sort of thing the Flower Grower Companion app handles for you, prompting you to prune when it’s actually the right moment for your garden, not a generic one.
A quick aside: I built a little app for flower growers who want gentle reminders about what to do and when - without it turning into another thing to feel guilty about. It's called the Flower Grower Companion. You tell it your location and your flowers, it tells you what actually needs doing this week (and just as importantly, when there's nothing to do at all)
Have a look
