Roses. Prune or hold off

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j rockford
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Roses. Prune or hold off

Post by j rockford » February 25th, 2018, 10:59 am

Bud swell in full effect on 95%. Should have a good inventory on winter damage in a few days. Seems a tad early to get out the shears but I'm worried about going too long and wasting energy stored for a part of the plant that will likely be pruned at some point. Gdd points to forsythia bloom here soon which is another sign. Any thoughts from the crowd?

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MorpheusPA
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Re: Roses. Prune or hold off

Post by MorpheusPA » February 25th, 2018, 3:31 pm

Pruning can be done from leaf bud swelling onward. So you're good to go if you want to. Some roses (like Knockout) don't care when you do it, so if July is more convenient, feel free to wait on those. :-)

Most sites recommend "late winter to early spring," and when the forsythia bloom, I mark it as the official Early Spring point.

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j rockford
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Re: Roses. Prune or hold off

Post by j rockford » February 25th, 2018, 11:26 pm

Thanks morph. Much appreciated

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bernstem
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Re: Roses. Prune or hold off

Post by bernstem » March 3rd, 2018, 9:37 am

You can prune at any time. Generally, though, you want to do your aggressive spring pruning before your roses start to bud to help push stored root nutrients for maximal growth. If you prune after the roses start to bud, you have wasted some of the root storage on growth that gets cut off. It won't kill the rose, but it will affect growth for a period of time until it can get leaves out and start photosynthesis.

A couple additional comments:
- Winter pruning is mostly to get them looking better and help prevent wind from breaking longer canes off too low, but an aggressive winter pruning can serve as a spring pruning. You may still have to go back and remove dead canes, but 90% of your pruning will have already been done.
- New roses should be minimally pruned for 1-2 years.
- Knockout (and other shrub) roses don't seem to care what you do (I prune them with a hedge trimmer).
- You want to start fertilization when the first buds/leaves appear.
- Roses really like Alfalfa. It will induce new basal cane growth.

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j rockford
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Re: Roses. Prune or hold off

Post by j rockford » March 6th, 2018, 9:07 pm

Thank bern. Cleaned em up and trained the four climbers this weekend. Bad winter was brutal on most of the garden BUT my Chrysler imperial, sceptered isle, Munstead wood, Gertrude Jekyll and Julia child didn't seem to notice one bit. Others, well, they are back to square one, everything has bud swell and some have new leaves size of a fingernail already.Epsom salts and alfalfa this weekend. More organic nitrogen sources as we go.

Also, been dealing with Rose midge since mid since mid year last year. Been doing a lot of research. Have a game plan in action. Any experience with this critter? FWIW it is the poa triv of garden pests.


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Re: Roses. Prune or hold off

Post by HoosierLawnGnome » March 7th, 2018, 9:35 am

Good reminder. I need to clean mine up for spring. I swear one of mine looks greener at the base this week.

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