Through googling, I found this on an oregon website. So next yr.I'll be whacking all my rosa glaucas next march or april.

best, Mindy

An easy way to prune roses

Posted by Kym Pokorny February 27, 2008 12:11PMI

I have to admit right up front that I only have three roses to prune. Two ('Lyda Rose' and Rosa glauca) take very little pruning, basically just shaping and thinning. One, Rosa sericea pteracantha, I cut to the ground every year because I want to prompt the new growth with its large, translucent ruby thorns.

It's not that I don't like roses, especially shrub and climbing roses. I just don't have a sunny situation for them. 'Lyda Rose' actually takes a little shade and so will R. glauca, though it will have much better blue-gray foliage if it gets plenty of sunshine.

But if I did grow roses, I would prune them the easy way. Basically, you just shear them. Don't freak out. I know stepping away from the detailed traditional rules is scary. It probably even seems blasphemous for some of you who've perfected the old method.

There's an easier -- much easier -- way, though. And I'm not making it up.

I wrote this story in 1999:

"Research in England and California shows that shearing roses off at about 18 inches high actually produces better rose bushes than the 'classical method.' Shearing is done without regard to removing dead wood or crossing branches or cutting at outward-facing buds at correct angles.

"The first tests, done by the England's Royal National Rose Society, created such controversy in the rose world that tests were repeated for several years, always with the same result.

"Trials were done with the same variety of rose and evaluated on bloom, growth, health and overall performance.

"Though it wasn't planned, dedicated rosarian Rich Baer took the same radical approach this year. He just didn't have time to spend four or five weekends pruning his 600 roses. So instead, he went through his beds sometime in March, lopping them off at 18 inches in 'a straight chop across the top.' The job took him four to five hours, though he says he'll go back in this summer and remove any dead wood.

"His neighbor to the north pruned his roses in the classical method. An inspection in mid-May showed the roses in Baer's garden to be healthy, vigorous and ready to bloom. His neighbor's, on the other hand, were much smaller and far from ready to bloom.

"Baer points out that the much-more-complicated classical pruning method got started because the people who write books or give advice are most often exhibitors who look for certain things in their roses. 'They want bigger stems, longer stems and bigger flowers,' Baer says, all things that come from hard pruning.

"Granted, the shearing method doesn't produce show-quality roses, but it does produce more blooms, which is what most home gardeners want, Baer notes.

"The science behind the tests? When you prune back hard, the bushes have less foliage and so make less food. If you use the shearing method, shrubs have more foliage, produce more food and grow bigger and faster."

However you choose to prune your roses, don't neglect it. The worst thing you can do is not to prune them at all. That's because they'll bloom too early and get spindly

I