Mine's much simpler.....I just call my Doctor's office & tell them to stock up a couple extra units of my blood type 'cause its PRUNING SEASON! Kathy, its a GUY thing ;-)

We no longer prune most of our roses. Those few that need cutting back, we do. Eventually.
We don't spray. sprays caused our old dog to seizure. Not worth it.
Bush tits eat our aphids, too.
Roses that habitually rust or mildew -- we don't keep them.

Easier, happier, gentler rose-growing. :-)

Jeri

I am a bit (lot) slack on the pruning too. I don't even have a special season (unlike the fruit trees where I am on the case) but hack away at long canes whenever I have my secateurs to hand. True, it is all a bit of a mish-mash but I call it 'wild gardening' and ignore it. The roses seem OK. I do enjoy the annual division (asters and heleniums) and clear-up as, like you, Cathy, this is the time of most space and order in a vastly overcrowded and undesigned plot.

Don't know that I have any special rituals, but I sure do like your idea about audiobooks. I've got a 13-hour audiobook of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice that I adore and a handy-dandy portable disc-player. Think I just might try that this year. Thanks for the idea!

Kate

I won't start pruning until sometime in April. The pots will come out of winter storage the first week and get cleaned up and pruned. They're easy to work on because you can turn and move them around to get at them. And I can sit on a stool to do it.

Next I'll uncover the front raised bed and prune those. It's harder to work there because there are a lot of bulbs and perennials mixed in so you have to watch where you step all the time. And you have to clean up all the perennials and things too as you go. But the top tier is also high enough that I can sit while I'm working and that helps.

Last will be the bed out by the street. We doubled it's size last year so I have no idea what kind of job that's going to be. The old half wasn't that big of a job but there are WAY more roses out there now and I don't have any idea how well (or not) some of them did so I'll have to do some careful assessing as a I go along. And as usual I'll save my favorite rose to prune for last. Reine des Violettes, having no thorns at all, is a joy to prune even though she's an octopus! By the time I get to her I'm usually bushed and pretty scratched up so it's a relief to not have to worry about that while I'm working.

Since I'm retired I'll work on all this over the course of a couple of weeks depending on the weather. Once the cleaning and pruning is done I'll scratch in some slow release fertilizer around everything. I don't spray much so I probably won't do that unless I actually see there is some disease already starting. Then I'll sit back and wait very impatiently for things to grow and bloom. Which won't be until the end of May!

I work full time, so my heavy gardening occurs on weekends. My brain is so full of noise (mostly computer logic) all the time, for me the quiet and nature sounds during gardening, in this case pruning, is the happiest sound I could imagine. So I listen to nothing other than the birds, bugs, (neighbors - not one of the happy sounds!), and dogs playing while I work.

I too rely on a wheelbarrow (my best friend in the garden other than the dogs who don't carry anything other then the hose end, and only to places I don't want it). It carries a few different versions of pruners, collects pruned canes until full enough for me to dump them, and most importantly, a container of water with a few drops of bleach where I dip my pruners each time I switch to a new rose bush. My belief there is that I'm not spreading any potential diseases from one rose to another - not sure if it's effective or just makes me feel better. And I'm not even sure if any of my roses have any disease but after reading about how much disease there is out there in roses, presuming that many of mine are diseased even if I don't see signs.

I pruned this year the first week in February (Northern California, East Bay Area). Also trying to get in mulching with horse manure (I have horses so I don't have to travel for it). Have about 1/3 of the beds mulched, and do it iteratively as I have time.

Will formally fertilize with a 12-6-10 fertilizer (for the first time ever fertilizing with anything other than manure) probably first week in March. All the pruned roses are leaving out like crazy now, and it's awesome to look at them every day to see how fast they respond to the pruning.

Put in close to 20 bareroots so far this year. Just ensure they stay very moist. Thinking in a few years that the pruning exercise will take a lot longer as all the younger roses mature.

And for some really foolish reason, this year I pruned without gloves and short sleeves. No clue why. Perhaps I like to flaunt my cut up hands and arms and dirty fingernails to the geekly people I work with!

I am really enjoying the responses so far. It seems pruning is very different for each of us. Ooh, pruning without gloves--ouch! I usually get those tiny thorns that are invisible and stay in my fingers for weeks. Not this year, though. I was almost totally unscathed with some cheap gloves I got at Home Depot.

Happily I grow mostly old roses, mainly teas, that don't need pruning to perform. I just prune them whenever they encroach on each other too much. No wheelbarrow for me, all but the toughest, thorniest canes get cut up under the bushes as mulch. The thick branches get put around baby roses to keep the rodents from eating them. I don't spray so that's not a problem, and use alfalfa meal, which I water in and then (hopefully) let the rains soak them in even deeper. My garden is now about four years old and I still have many young roses, having shovel pruned their unsuitable predecessors, so the garden doesn't pose any problems with crowding yet, and my few climbers are not mature enough to cause me grief. Idiotically, I always prune without gloves and get away with it since the roses aren't crowded yet and only a few here and there need genuine haircuts. I don't think it gets much easier than that and I haven't heard a single rose complain.

Ingrid

I never wear gloves to prune or work on my roses. I can't feel anything with gloves on and I'd be more likely to cut a finger off! I wear my scratches like badges of honor! I do have a pair of Mudd Gloves I wear to pull out the winter mulch because it's always icky by spring but that's about it.

This year I didn't prune half my bourbons and the ones that were not pegged or somewhat tied horizontally are giving a very weak show on the end of sky high canes. The ones that I shortened by half in the traditional way or else pegged look much better and have so many more buds and blooms. I thought I would try the lazy way and see if a taller plant left to its own would give better/more flowers. I feel it did not. Also, my spacing is wrong for letting them grow at will. I would have to have planted them much more widely. I'd rather have to prune and have more plants than just a few wild ones with so so flowers. This is just for the Bourbons. I didn't try it with the Hyb. Musks or Polys which I think might do better with a no prune policy.
I tried not pruning the Minis once,but did not like all the little twiggy stuff that didn't flower well during the rest of the year. I have to wear long gauntlet gloves for them and take my time.

I have not pruned my Fawn or Fair Bianca and Sterling Silver and they prefer being left alone. Sombreuil is too high up to prune so she's Au Natural as well.

Since this will be my first spring here on our farm and my roses, I haven't found my pruning routine... I decided that since most of my roses will be used for my pleasure (cutting and arranging for my home), I would plant most of them in rows. Rows make it easy to drive the Polaris Ranger between them--carrying my tools, plants, fertilizer etc to the roses and clippings, pots,weeds, trash away from them..The tractor did the digging,tilling, throwing the dirt into raised beds.. It's been so easy, I feel like I am cheating...

It was a melancholy pruning time this year, first time I've not had Hoover following me around staring at me constantly. Even last year when he could not walk much any more, it was still follow, stare, follow stare, follow stare. I really missed him this year.

I always make the big Abe Darby the last rose to be pruned. It marks the end of pruning, it's when I can say I'm officially done.

I don't prune the big climbers every year. A thorough pruning one year, then just light clean up the next. It's a lot easier that way.

Two or three years ago I started keeping all the roses under about 6' all year by deadheading harder. That has also made pruning season a lot easier, and they looked far better into late fall than they did when I let them get 10' tall.

No ipod, no audio books. The sound of the crows harassing the red tail hawks, the parrots, the fountain, the koi splashing in the pond. The garden has its own music.

I start pruning in late fall when the once-blooming old roses have lost their leaves. They're deciduous and go dormant more or less independently of the weather. Since we have perhaps five hundred roses pruning takes all winter, with breaks for when there's snow on the ground or it's raining or really cold. After the deciduous roses come those that are cold hardy but tend to hang on to their leaves, like Bourbons, then the more tender Hybrid Musks. For Teas and Chinas I mostly prune away dead growth. In March I do my few big Noisette and Tea-Noisette climbers. Spring begins at this point, with the evergreen roses dropping the leaves they've kept through the winter and everything leafing out anew. April the roses are full of new growth, and at the end of that month the first blooms appear.
I do other cleanup, pruning, weeding and mulching, as I work on the roses, not worrying about a rigid schedule. If something doesn't get done it doesn't get done, that's all. Our ground is too steep to make a wheelbarrow feasible, so I carry my tools in my pockets and in a bag slung over my shoulder. Prunings get chopped up and spread as a mulch on the beds. I try to wear leather gloves when pruning, cheap ones from the hardware store: some of those roses are really thorny. Try pruning 'Centifolia Variegata' barehanded. Ouch. Also 'Jaune Desprez' is a thorny beast, in a particularly sneaky way. Then I carry my usual thin rubber(plastic?)/cloth gloves for digging in the dirt, very useful with our gluey gray clay. So I'm forever taking gloves off and putting them on, working barehanded mainly for tying.
I like the sounds of nature too, so don't carry music or audiobooks. The quiet of the country is beautiful. Pruning is of course my annual inspection time, and learning time, when I look closely at each rose and think about the garden as a project. I also let my brain go in neutral, thinking about anything and nothing in particular.
Melissa

I am also only 4 years into rose gardening so I haven't quite settled on a routine yet. I started out pruning things to 12" and spraying, but it didn't take long for me to fall off that wagon. This year I've been pruning as things catch my eye, most of my roses are budding out and as I notice bushes that look overcrowded I judiciously remove the weaker canes. I got rid of the roses that were disease prone and my garden looks dramatically better to me, I had some pangs of regret over the loss of the spectacular and unique colors but now that I've got a garden full of healthy roses to admire I'm not so sad.

Pruning is apparently different for all of us. It is fascinating that some use prunings as mulch. Also the no-gloves thing still fascinates me. I would no sooner go barefoot than forgo gloves when pruning. Guess I am a real wimp!

I do envy those of you who can hear the sounds of nature in your gardens. Here you have noisy leaf-blowers from the for-hire gardeners, who mow postage stamp lawns and blow all the clippings and dead leaves all around. They use old, noisy equipment which even drowns out the audiobooks or music. Rakes are unheard of these days, things of the past. Or, when the backyard neighbors are out, I can hear the machine gun assault of the woman's voice or, when her PMS is particularly bad, the screaming at her teenage son. Luckily, neighbors on both sides are pleasant and quiet. Very few chances for nice sounds of nature here--thus, audiobooks. I am listening to David Copperfield at the moment. Very entertaining.

I read that you should destroy all the cut off canes and it's good to hear that many of you are recycling. My thornless Blush Boursault has beautiful smooth,long red canes. I use them in crafts and to stake up orchids, etc.
One year I took all the rose canes and let the leaves fall off. Then I cut them to @10 inches and tied them in little bundles with cotton string. They were great firestarters but it was time consuming . I like to do what I read in a book my sister got me called The Rose Bible and use little pieces of cut cane to space the canes apart when they are growing side by side. Later on when the canes harden up, I remove the spacers. When the leaves come in, I don't notice them at all. I like to count the new canes on the bands that had a first year in the ground after spending a year in gallon pots.

Still experimenting.

This year Henry Fonda had to be butchered because it became a tree. I could not see the roses: it is planted in my tiny and narrow flower garden which is criss-crossed with paths. I couldn't stand far back enough to see it!

I like to strip all of the leaves off of Marmalade Skies because they get rust by winter. I did that last year, and the plants were spectacular into January this year. Since I have so few roses, this is not an overwhelming chore.

No gloves. I start pruning on the spur of the moment, and I'm too lazy to walk up to the shed to get them. I just say "Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!" the whole time, which does not work as well as gloves.

I don't listen to anything either, but I sing Johnny Mathis songs as loudly as I can. It helps drown out the mechanic behind us and the contractor next door. Sounds just about as good, too.

Hoovb, I have the same situation. My Wheaten Terrier will no longer be my garden companion either. i always had a dual purpose when I went outside to prune. I remember pictures of your darling dog. Sorry for your loss.
SORRy for the off topic post.

I love this thread. As many of you, I've retired, temporarily I hope. Living in a retirement community makes having all these roses much easier. It's pretty quiet most of the time so I usually talk to myself. After I prune my 60 roses, I do some pruning for neighbors (no not done yet)then I clean up and keep after the veggie garden. It does not take much but raking and thinning. I've been really lazy in the garden this year as I've started knitting lessons and am currently obsessing with that new hobby. The roses are established and are happy. I thinned and removed dead wood this season and transplanted a few. I do need to water a bit as the rains never came but earlier in fall. At my rented plots at the garden center, I tend to prune, fill the can and wheel it to the dumpster. Then walk over to the compost pile and fill the can and take it back to the roses. It's alot of work but pleasing too. There are always horses to hear and the endless sirens from the road below. Folks always like to stop and chat a bit and I now have time to engage in that. All in all, it's good. One more thing -back in November I had to butcher my Buff Beauty over the arch as the painters needed to get to the patio walls. I now have two bits of new growth on top with flowers. I'll have to take a picture. Pretty cute!

Ha, postage size yards... that would be me. I live in New York City, proper, so this is a big yard comparatively. It's roughly 30x30 feet in the back. We have about 16 roses in the back, and 3 on the side. This is their 3rd year in the ground, so just starting to get to a good size. I do a 2 step cleanup for the roses, the first cut is usually late November. Just enough for good measure for winter, usually once most of the leaves have dropped, and I'll do another shaping in early march. I put mulch on after I've done any requisite fall bulbs. But we have such a small space, I garden very intensly, I've dug a lot of organics in, made somewhat of a raised bed with rocks I dug out of the ground, so the point in relation to the pruning, is that in a good year, these roses get gigantic, even though it's North facing (in summer it gets full sun 12 hours a day). Most are hybrid Teas or similar high maintenance, particularly because they are so close and get drip irrigation, there's always plenty of moisture.

The first cleanup takes about 3 big garbage bags after I've tied up the stems and cinched them tight in burlap so they won't cut through the bags. It takes me most of the day with other various cleanup tasks. We're looking to start a family and get a larger house with yard, so I'd be taking most of these with me, and revert it back to grass or similar low maintenance plants. I love the roses, but I need more space for them.

You can see the progression over a year in the pictures below. Each picture links to a collection you can see more pictures at that time of year.

The pictures are "roughly" March, May, June, September. Each link goes to the collection. I've ommitted the July-August picture, because honestly with the veggies, you can't even see the roses! It's so overgrown... June is the prettiest month, nothing else has caught up yet.

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Ocelaris, I love your photos! My backyard has two giant raised beds and I love them. It looks like you used your space wisely. Lucky you, veggies! I got way too greedy about roses and daylilies.

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who doesn't use gloves, lol.

Ocelaris, your garden is so neat and well organized! I love it.

Thank you for sharing all these wonderful stories. I have a small yard too-only about 25 roses but I love them dearly!

My tradition when I prune is I put on my dad's old levi jacket-its pretty decrepit-holes in the elbows etc and set out. It makes me feel like we are still celebrating the end of winter together. My husband keeps buying me gloves-he says he doesnt like holding hands with a farmer :) I always lose track of them tho...

Still havent got to all of them yet-but working on it. Some are still blooming-goofy things.

Thanks for the nice comments. My wife and I are young, and no kids yet, so probably a bit too much time and energy goes into organizing and such. By middle of summer, everything is all messy; these are just the clean pictures :)

I remember growing up with my family always mulching in the spring, not as much pruning in the fall, but enough good memories that as we've bought our first house, we've started our own traditions as such. It's a nice ritual to get everything nice and tidy as the weather turns cold. Plus it's nice to see the shape of the plant without it's leaves, so I can develop the structure long term. They don't take as long to shape as trees, but not as short lived as perennials which have little or nothing to show year to year (non-woody perennials).

I've gone through a number of gloves, and I'll admit most aren't nimble enough for rose work, but I myself and my wife a pair of these West Country Garden "Rose" gloves, or "gauntlet" gloves, and they really do stop most of the thorns, and are nimble enough for rose work. These are on the snug side, so that helps a good deal with feeling like they're an extension of your hand, and not some floppy wood cutting glove.

West Country Gloves Link

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My pruning didn't really get done last yr. I have over 1600 roses on 1/3 acre of sloped land with 8 giant Ponderosa pine trees, two black walnuts, and a couple tall scraggly oaks and a maple we tried the first yr here to chop up, but never finished. My problem is the yard cleanup and weeds more so than the pruning. But I do need to get the deadheading taken care of this yr. For me in the past, I would do it twice a yr. Early spring and summer. Or as needed. But with working 6 days a week the last 4yrs, my only day off is Sunday, and I haven't been able to get out and get much done even then. I try. I actually have gotten a handful of the beds cleaned up this yr tho, only because the weather has been dryer and warmer than normal.

Another problem I have is the dang irises. I got heavily into those about 10yrs ago, and planted them all over in the rose beds (huge mistake), and they are worse than the roses to clean up! The dead brown leaves don't rake up. You have to bend over and physically yank them off the old rhizomes, and if you miss them, they lay around under the plants looking uglier than the piles of pine needles. They need digging up about every 3yrs to get rid of the old rhizomes. They spread out and become invasive, sometimes choking the roses. I love to see their blooms, but I seriously am considering digging them all up and dumping them. Problem is, I was so addicted to them (like the roses) that I probably have close to a thousand varieties of them, and add to that all their children spreading out all over the beds.... Yikes!! I'll never get that done.

Sad to say, but my pruning gets done whenever I can get to it. No set time or rules to it. Unfortunately, it hinders the rebloom by not getting done regularly. But it cain't be helped! Especially when certain people in my family won't even offer to help out....

I do prune. I like pruning. It is one my my favorite things to do in the garden, though I also enjoy the false illusion of control I get from pulling weeds.

However, my pruning is more of a shaping, renewal, and simplifying of the plant rather than a ruthless size alteration. I want robust plants with deep root systems so that if water is rationed (and I think it will be on this drought year), the roses will be survive. Bigger root systems require bigger tops to support them.

Rosefolly

Beth, you're making me a little nervous. If you had to do it again and DID decide to plant bearded irises within proximity to roses, what is the closest you'd plant them to the roses without fear of them encroaching?

Not remotely close to your extent, but I did plant probably 50 bearded iris bulbs this year, many near the roses... I might think of moving some of them before they get too established.

Hoov, I'm so sorry about your dog. I lost my beloved cat last August who was almost always with me in the garden, and I well understand how you feel. It's a very empty feeling.

ocelaris, lovely pictures of your yard. I don't think I've seen many (if any) that are so beautifully maintained.

Ingrid