Re: Pruning roses

This is what I said in the California Gardening forum on GardenWeb:
 
"I think Californians really need to think about how, when and why they prune roses here.
 
Nobody should be surprised about the way roses act well here -- even without the copious watering, the fertilizing, the winter (or any!) pruning.
 
We've simply gone along with what the Eastern rose gardeners tell us, via magazine and books from back there. It's even too bad that the American Rose Society, through its Master Rosarian program, perpetuates these regional processes throughout the whole country.
 
Fact is, roses are simply shrubs; hybrid shrubs with the bulk of their genetics from Rosa chinensis, a subtropical evergreen rose species.
 
Being such, it really doesn't "need" pruning in the winter time. It's actually best to prune it during the growing season, much as one would do with any evergreen repeat-blooming shrub, keeping it at a size and shape we want, mostly by cutting off bloomed-out stems. As long as we cut back cleanly to some husky wood, the rose responds positively all year long. If we do this, we have minimal pruning -- and sometimes NO pruning -- to do in the winter. (You're welcome to strip off old leaves if it makes it easier for you to spray; but that assumes you have rose cultivars that get diseases.)
 
We're trapped into thinking that we need to prune roses hard (to short stubs near the ground) because that's what they do back in cold country where they think it's going to save the rose tops from cold freezes. Even that's a myth, by the way.
 
More than that, we're trapped into thinking that we need to cut off the water, let rose hips form, put on crushed ice and all kinds of silly tricks to get our roses to go into "dormancy". They won't, they can't, they're Rosa chinensis genes.
 
Beyond winter chores, we're trapped into thinking we need to fertilize roses often and heavily. Some old cutlivars maybe. The newer ones much less. When planted in heavy soil, which contains good nutrients, roses are very happy. When planted in sandy soil, roses sulk. And amending is a myth, too.
 
We've been convinced that roses need gobs of water. Roses in heavy soil, when trained with good soakings deeply and infrequently (once every 3-4 weeks in summer), become extraordinarily drought-tolerant. When planted in sand or put on a co-dependent drip system, they become sissies.
 
And there are hundreds of rose cultivars that are disease-free and have self-cleaning blossoms so maintenance is lowered even more.
 
Problem is, too many gardeners plant old problem-ridden cultivars, plant them in sandy soil, waste their time with amendments, use drip systems and over-fertilize and then tell everyone how problematic roses are. Surprised?"
 
Joe


Joe Seals
Horticultural Consultant
Pismo Beach, California
Home/Office: 805-295-6039

--- On Wed, 1/6/10, Ben Wiswall <benwiswall@pacbell.net> wrote:

From: Ben Wiswall <benwiswall@pacbell.net>
Subject: Pruning roses
To: "medit plants forum" <medit-plants@ucdavis.edu>
Date: Wednesday, January 6, 2010, 2:14 PM

Hi All,
Normally at this time of year I prune the shrub roses back by about half, sacrificing their last batch of flowers so that by Spring they are ready to bloom again on fresh new growth.  This year, however, I have relatives visiting on January 17th from the snowbound East, and thought I'd gloat a little with a garden full of rose blossoms.  Will I compromise the roses' performance by delaying their annual pruning to the end of January?
Thanks,
Ben Armentrout-Wiswall
Simi Valley, inland Ventura County
Southern California 

Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index