Wow - One of the things I like about this forum is reading about all of the folks who have lots of land in rural areas. You just reminded me of one of the benefits of living in suburbia. We get extra large garbage cans - they are green - just for garden waste. They have - wait for it - WHEELS! So, we just put all of the rose clippings in them (we have 2 because we own & live in a duplex, and the tenants don't garden). Then, the nice garbage company comes & picks up the garden waste! Of course, even with only 1/3rd of an acre, sometimes we have too much green debris from the garden to fit in 2 cans,or use in the compost pile, but this way we are able to put the thorny rose clippings into the cans, and only put the other prunings, which do not have thorns, onto a "debris pile" next to the garage. When it gets too big my husband takes it to the dump in his truck - without getting stabbed by thorns.

Jackie

I like to save up a few of the thickest, thorniest rose prunings, and I use them to put in rodent burrows to encourage the little buggers to go burrow elsewhere. I have burrowing rats and voles in my garden. I leave the moles alone.

Run through a chipper sgredder and compost them.
Or place in a large open trailer and drive really fast down a country road. By the time you get home, they'll be spread all over the county.

We are required to put garden waste in big paper bags that are sold in HD, Lowes, etc. This is actually the biggest pain of prunning process to me. In order to fit reasonable amount into each bag you have tho clip each branch in relatively small pieces. This takes a lot of time considering that I have many big roses and I am a believer in good winter/spring pruning. Each rose gets at least 1/2-1/3 off haircut.
During pruning time I fill a lot of these bags. At my previous place it was allowed to burn, this was much easier.
Olga

That wouldn't work for me. I don't have enough room the drag a big pool like that around. I barely have 3ft between the beds. I use a small size plastic garbage can and drag it around. When it gets full, I dump it in the bigger green waste garbage cans. I just wish they'd pick up more than twice a month tho. I not only have rose clippings to dispose of.... I have tons of pine needles. Ugh!

Years ago I chipped and applied as mulch after spraying them well with a fungicide. They soon composted. I saw no adverse effects from doing this. I've never put any in the trash for pick-up.

We just did a lot of pruning, of butterfly bushes, not roses. We put down one of those plastic tarps and put all the clippings on it and dragged it to the backyard to put in a pile to dry out before we chip it. Sometimes my husband uses the little wagon attached to the riding mower. I love being able to chip up all my rose canes and other stuff. This year I was able to compost all of my roses with my own compost. And no more yard waste!

The disposal of the waste is the hard part, isn't it? It makes the actual clipping seem trivial. I try to compost everything that isn't woody, but the rose canes don't break down here--it takes years, literally.

We have green bins and I fill up the trash trash bin with canes too. We never have more than a small bag of trash, so it's extra room. The company doesn't recycle the green waste anyway. They use it as daily top cover for the trash-trash at the disposal site.

I started summer pruning too, so there is not so much waste in the winter, and it keeps the plant size manageable.

Sounds like a really silly idea to me. I started pruning on Valentine's Day & finished late this afternoon. Many of those cuttings had killer thorns that would have dispensed with a WalMart wading pool in short order.

One can only hope that the post above about spreading waste from the back of a speeding vehicle was an attempt at humor.

Of COURSE he was being funny, sheesh - he hasn't done that in years!
Sounds like a good idea, especially if you have a lot of shrubs. Plastic would definitely be hard enough to handle any thorns. Do they make dark green kiddie pools? Don't know if I'd want a turquoise one!
Jay

I remember one time I was going to marbelize some pillowcases and sheets (don't even ask why). I mixed in the $20 marbelizing chemical, poured in $30 acrylic paint and watched the fabric sink down to the bottom of the pool. Trying to fish it out, wash it, dry it and try again only made things worse. I sent the poor swirly-splotchy pepto bismol sheet set to the thrift store. As for the kiddy pool, I mixed potting soil in it, it got a few holes in it and a friend planted a bog. His mom made him get rid of it. Then it came back here and we put more holes in it and planted lettuces. Finally I decided it was too ugly to keep around and took it to the dump. I never considered it for trimmings. I wouldn't want to try to tow a fully loaded kiddie pool of antique rose canes. I tried dragging them on an old tarp once and it was heavy.

My rose clippings go in the Hosta bed to detour deer and rabbits. Pine needles go in the rose beds as mulch.

I live on acreage, so everything goes on the compost pile and eventually breaks down. I would never put pine needles in the garbage--they're great for mulch. The pool idea would work here probably, but I have a lot of gates to go through, and that might not work. I always keep a kiddy pool for my geese because they can't go in the pond--the gators eat them.

Actually, very little goes in the garbage here. It's either recycled or composted. I have a thing about filling up the landfills.

Those kiddie pools are HEAVY hard plastic. They withstand a lot. A large dog and lots of kids cannot destroy them so roses arent going to either. I use a wheelbarrow. Filled my ex large one up four times at the grooming shop and the city is kind enough to take them away. At home, they go to the back of the property to mulch, again in the wheelbarrow and after being sprayed.

I tried out the wading pool yesterday. To help the small rope stay around the pool, I poked 8 holes in the lip with a big nail in 4 places [2 holes spaced 2" apart in each of the 4 places]. I threaded the small rope in these and left about 24" at the ends, tied them together. Then I tied a longer rope to that to tie to my golf cart. I dragged this all over my very large front yard, stopping to prune. When it got a little full, I mashed the cuttings down with my foot. When finished, I dragged it to my burn pile out back of my horse barn - it was easy to turn over and dump. Put the pool on top of the golf cart and went back for more pruning. This would be easy to drag around a yard if not using a golf cart. This worked great - took about 15 minutes to poke the holes and thread the rope, and off I went. No more stuffing cuttings into a small tub or wheelbarrow - just dropped them into the pool, minimized getting stuck by thorns. I will use this methoid from now on! I also plan to use it to trim crepe myrtle trees, rake leaves.....Sure made pruning much easier!

Wow i also have the green yardcwaste cans that the very nice city workelrs pick uo but trying to put the clippings in the can even though they have wheels is no easy task. So i started useing the pool heck you can throw them in any way you want. Then load thrm p and dump th pile out back and no scratches no problems.

Just saw Julie's comment on this older post. Here is another update on the pool. I am on my 2nd one. This is by far the easiest method I have found. Thorns do not penetrate the plastic - I use my horse "pooper scooper" which is like a heavy duty rake with strong tines to scoop the cuttings up and dump them in the pool. Never get scratched by the thorns. Even filled up, it is not heavy, so just drag to burn pile, tump it over and that's it. I realize this is not workable for every situation, but I have a large place and have used this method for the last several years with great success.

Not trying to hijack this thread, but alameda, I got a chuckle out of your "tump" it over. It must be a Texas thang, I say it too and I've had people from out of state look at me like I lost my mind. I just tell them I'm fixin' to and bless their hearts.