Depends on how large you want the bush to get. The deeper you prune now the smaller the resulting bush will be. Leave them longer now and your rose will be larger by the end of the season. I do minimal pruning because I like them to get bigger before winter. The more cane to store energy for the following spring. But it's really a matter of preference. You do want to take off all the small twiggy stuff at the tips and take it down to main cane so it will grow out new buds.

I dunno Seil -its weirdly counter-intuitive - I have had to rebalance lopsided fruit trees in a couple of small orchards by only pruning the short side....which looked shocking for a few months.....until the cut side roared into life. I was always told that growth followed the knife and consequently struggled with the idea of pruning for size control.....until it became clear to me that a plant was going to grow to its innate potential no matter what I did to it .

Oh, that's true, Camp, pruning encourages growth. If you have a spot that is shorter and you want to try and even it out, prune only the short side. It will grow as a result of the pruning but the other longer side, left unpruned, should not. This is in theory, of course, because I've found the roses have a mind of their own in practice, lol!

But for just normal spring pruning you can cut very deep to make the bush smaller. It will start over and grow from there. Or light prune just the tips, to leave the bush larger to begin with, and it will grow from there and be a larger plant. The more cane you leave to start with the larger the bush will be by the end of the season.

In cold climates (and for exhibition purposes) we've all been taught to prune very deep in the spring, maybe down to 6 or 8 inches high. I never understood why I was pruning off perfectly healthy, good cane so I don't do that anymore. I only prune as deep as I have to due to winter damage and leave the rest. I also only snap off the spent blooms just below the hip instead of pruning back when dead heading during the season. As a result I end up with much larger bushes by fall.

This may not be the case in places that don't have a real winter but it does seem to work here. I don't think our roses ever reach their full size potential because of that winter die back like they do in warm climates. So I try to let them get as large as they can, when they can, in our short summer.

Yeah, I think a lot of that hard pruning was done to get fewer but larger blooms...a bit like that apical dominance thingy. My grand-dad grew chrysanthemums and I recall the mania for stopping and pinching and faffing about. For sure, in Z8, winter die back tends to be minimal so a large shrub will get large, no matter how it is pruned.....but the overall appearance is generally improved by some judicious cutting (although my roses rarely get the careful attention that the fruit bushes get).

Thanks. I guess my question was also related to summer deadheading. Do I just lop off the spent cluster to the nearest leaf?
My Poseidon (supposedly a FB) grew 8 ft canes last year...first season and grafted on multiflora. Should I chop it back to 2 ft or so? It's in a cutting bed so I prefer a large amount of blooms rather than "perfect" ones.
Susan

Oh dear, Poseiden sprouted 8 ft canes!? Wow! I don't have experience to share as mine is young, but I may have to rethink where I'm planning to plant it this spring. I am certainly no pruning expert, but when one of my plants do that, I tend to just leave them be to see what they want to do. If they only want to bloom at the tops, then I prune them back so that I dont have to have a ladder to reach them.

Susan, what zone are you in? Just removing the clusters should make it sprout a new cluster up from that point. If you want to keep it shorter cut deeper and it should keep it within bounds.

Seil, I assume my microclimate is 7 to 7B...Thanks for the info. Hope your pots are surviving.
Brittie, my Poseidon is on multiflora, not own root. Not sure if that will make a difference or not....
Susan

Mine is also grafted, not sure to what though.

I am just saying this so that you know I mean no harm nor ill will but to advise you of what happened to my 5 Marie Pavie rose bushes of 5 feet and as many years. I pruned them back on March 1 to about 1-foot tall. Two weeks later, we had a freeze and it burned them to about 6 inches. That was 6-7 years ago and they have never grown taller than 1 foot and bloom very little. I don't know if everyone would have that same experience. I had pruned them in years past to about 1-foot height and they sprung right back, but not that time.

Unfortunately, I am taking them out this year and replacing with some new MPs, hoping this was just "one of those things" and will never happen again.

I do prune my Ballerinas back to about 2 feet and they are up to at least 8 by end of season.

Some of my hybrid musks are monsters, but lovely monsters.

I am just saying this so that you know I mean no harm nor ill will but to advise you of what happened to my 5 Marie Pavie rose bushes of 5 feet and as many years. I pruned them back on March 1 to about 1-foot tall. Two weeks later, we had a freeze and it burned them to about 6 inches. That was 6-7 years ago and they have never grown taller than 1 foot and bloom very little. I don't know if everyone would have that same experience. I had pruned them in years past to about 1-foot height and they sprung right back, but not that time.

Unfortunately, I am taking them out this year and replacing with some new MPs, hoping this was just "one of those things" and will never happen again.

I do prune my Ballerinas back to about 2 feet and they are up to at least 8 by end of season.

Some of my hybrid musks are monsters, but lovely monsters.

Excuse the double post, please.

Polys and cluster roses like noisettes ad HMs don't really need pruning, just removal of dead wood. Prune for shape.size, but otherwise, just let them do their thing.

Ok great. Clusters confuse me a bit. HA! And Pat, I know all too well what happens if we prune to soon.
I'm going to prune modern HTs and FBs and just shape everything else. Most of my OGRs I won't touch because they are less than 3 years old.
Thanks again everyone!
Susan

My problem with pruning is that I will lose roses that are not pruned to the ground at some point. For example, I had/have 4 Penelopes together. For years and years I enjoyed their display, then they began to fade - not bloom well. I was told to go to the base with older roses, and cut hard to force new wood. I did this and saved the roses, but it took two or three years.

Last spring I cut very hard and deep into my three Souvenir de la Malmaison roses. They sprang back as tall and pretty as ever. I also did the same thing with Ducher.

However, you are asking about polys, and I have not done this specifically with my polys.

I think pruning is one of the most confusing things about growing roses.

Once the season is in full swing, I do not cut back. But at this time of the year if I can get back, I do like to cut to about 4 feet. Later, in February, I try to cut harder. However, this year has been terrible, and I will be breaking all my rules.

I am in a hurry, and hope this is not too much rambling. This is a very good subject for me, because I really do not understand it.

Sammy

Sammy, I'm right there with ya. If I understand correctly the teas don't like pruning at all...just shaping. The chinas don't much like pruning and need to maintain their twigginess. OGRs should be pruned for shape. Austins need summer pruning in warm climates. Moderns can be hacked back to nubs...
That's the way I understand it. But....
Susan

Some of these floribundas come along lately are not like the tidy floribundas of the past. They are monster shrubs here in So. CA. I still love them, but it's nothing like what I used to call a floribunda except for the trait of reblooming clusters of large flowers.

I have had polys sulk after a hard pruning so now if I want to keep them shorter, I prune a little all year when the flowers are done. Otherwise, I break off old blooms and let them grow as large as they will.