I think for any rose there are just two key pruning steps: 1) You need to prune any dead or damaged wood back to healthy wood and 2) You should practice renewal pruning where you prune several of the older canes all the way back to ground level, to keep the plant growing mostly on wood which is younger than 4 or 5 years. This last step can be difficult on bushy plants like the Meidilands and I would do this as the last thing after the rest of the pruning is done.

The rest of the pruning is up to you and how you want to shape the plant. My approach with Meidilands would probably be to take some shears to the plant and reduce its size by about about half - or more, depending on how large a shrub I wanted.

One of the beautiful things about the Ruby Meidiland is the long, arching canes that it gets. Not all of its branches are like that, as you can tell in the photo, but I sure like them when they do that. So, it sounds like you're saying it will still continue to flower well on those long canes but I should be careful about letting them get too old (4 or 5 years). Is that right?

I do have some room here to let them grow, and on the front side, they spill over a boulder retaining wall, which looks nice. So, I probably won't shear them.

Anyone else have experience with growing Meidilands and not pruning them like traditional roses? Any results you can share about how well they flower on older canes?

I have Scarlet and Fuschia, both cascading into my driveway. Besides cleaning out dead wood, the only pruning mine get is when they get caught in the car door or window or get driven over.

By the way, I assume your concept of "traditional" roses is modern hybrid teas, since the real traditional roses, ie, antique/old garden roses rarely need or want heavy pruning--again, just dead wood clean-up and shaping.

Hey, I just wanted to follow up and say thanks, especially to Roseleaf, for encouragement to let my Meidiland roses grow this year without pruning. The result was outstanding, as they grew longer canes and cascaded over a rock wall with a very impressive display of flowers this year. They also continued to have sporadic blooms until late November this year! What amazing roses. Here's a photo from their peak bloom in early July:

{{gwi:233359}}

So weird -- it let me post the message above, but the thread never showed up as having a new entry on the forum. Maybe it will now?

You might need to take them down to 18" every few years to restore their vigor & clean out any dead wood build up.

They look great!

Stevation - what a timely post! I have been looking for roses to plant next spring to cascade over a retaining wall, and love how how the Meidilands are performing for you. Thank you for posting the pruning info and pic.
-terry