Hi Susan, I am with you there. My problem is because we are surrounded by tall dense Cedar trees. Our roses shoot out for the light and become very tall. This too is not my preference, so I prune fairly low to begin with. I go to my knee height with most roses, but they stil grow quite tall. But like you, I prefer to see them at eye level or lower. I believe, the pruning after the first flush should be a little more severe than we feel inclined, that should keep them short. I am still experimenting. Last Season I tried the pruning method of just detaching the spent blooms. I was amazed at how this promoted more flowering buds, but plants got terrifically tall. This year, I have decided to do that type of prune on the plants that need it, eg. roses in the background that you do not mind being tall. Foreground roses, I will prune, when deadheading a little shorter.

........tis just my observation.

BTW, I love your roses and the fact that you practised what David Austin preached by planting several Austin's together, WOW! You were very brave to do that.

I wish you happy rose gardening!
Cheers! Pauline Brigden. AKA Moodyblue

Pauline, thanks for your feedback! We are surrounded by tall trees on three sides and the house on the fourth side, similar to you. I can't just remove the blooms anymore, they get so huge and they're already large now. I wonder if I'll delay the next flush by pruning lower either close to the early spring pruning or in some cases below that.

Well, Susan, I don't have an answer, but it is good to hear from you, and I think your garden is lovely.

I would also have asked if I had that question because I think around here to cut back may not be a good thing because of the heat.

I will be watching this thread for an answer, and hope you continue to post.

Sammy

Susan, I usually prune my established roses down after the first flush, especially the HTs. I like to keep them at a certain height and not get too wild. I have some that I may cut back even further because, like you, I don't think I pruned back enough this spring,and with the long wet spring we had, my rose got very lanky and are flopping.

Some of my newer roses and teas, I just pop off the dead heads and let them go. But sooner or later, they will get a hair cut.

We regularly have to cut back some of our monsters by at least a third after the first flush. For example, I refuse to let Heirloom overwhelm Lucille Ball. How they react pretty much depends on the rose. Bewitched still tries to reach for the sky and sends up long canes right away. Some, like Heirloom, fill in more than expanding. Tropicana does its Godzilla act no matter how hard I wack them back. I haven't noticed a significant delay in the second flush. A couple seem to grow faster and bloom sooner.
The ones that don't have thick foliage low on the bush only look naked a little while. Blue Girl comes to mind first. She looks better than she did during the first flush within a couple weeks. She does look odd the first week after cutting her. She still tries to get tall but doesn't look as lanky as when we didn't wack her. BG, Perfume Delight and Bewitched are some we cut back by half after the first flush.
I'm very pleased with how some respond and satisfied with the rest. It does lead to experimenting with others... Good luck :)

Some of mine tend to fall over from weight. One example is Jude The Obscure. After he finishes, I'm going to prune it back quite a bit. I must be doing something wrong because I don't think they should be falling over like that. I only have a few that and maybe I just didn't do enough spring pruning. I did a little experiment on Ambridge Rose and took them down 1/3 and they seem happy with that.
Nice to see you posting, Susan. :-)

Carla

I've been doing that too over the last year. For example, Hot Cocoa and Easy Goin' get to 10 ft easily. So I have been taking off 2-3' after each flush to keep them down below 5'. Then when they bloom again they are around 5'. They look so much better at 5' than at 10'. It doesn't seem to delay the next flush by much if any because they remain in step with the roses around them.

Mine HTs are only 2 years old and I was happy to have little winter damage this year (easy winter) then that followed by a very rainy Spring....they are tall for me, around 5 feet. Since I am only 5'2", I don't want to spray over my head.

How does the petite set handle this?

Such great feedback, thank you so much! And, good to see old rose buddies! Oh, shouldn't use that word old, let me say GOOD rose buddies! I think I've always just snapped off the blooms, so this will be new for me, actively pruning after this flush, and I'm glad it seems to be fine to do. They get just way too huge. We'll see who tames who this season (like I really think I'll have the upper hand).

I did the same thing some of you mentioned above of not pruning enough in the early spring with Abraham Darby and Teasing Georgia. They looked so nice at the time but flopped badly after a while with the heavy blooms. I hardened my heart two weeks ago and cut them both down to one foot. They look awful and there's a gaping hole in my planting scheme since they were next to each other but I know it was the right thing to do. In a few months all will be well but in the meantime I've learned my lesson.

Ingrid

Hi Susan! I'm going to have to prune down about that far because I didn't prune much at all this spring! Even some of the minis are over 5' tall! Down it all comes!

Good to hear from you!

Deadhead the blooms, cut down to the first set of five leaves, cut down to seven leaves, chop off the hole cane, chop all the canes down to 4 feet tall, chop off all the canes to 2 feet tall...

One thing always remains the same no matter which of the above options you take...

the rose just keeps on growing...

Ingrid, Teasing Georgia is really a rambler and in your zone is going to get huge. I have mine up on a 7 ft Umbrella trellis and it easily covered it in 2 years. I struggled with it for a couple of years then finally cut it down to get the umbrella trellis over it. Even this spring I cut it back A LOT and it's filled right in.

Get it up on some kind of support. You'll be happy you did.

So far I've just done this pruning on the David Austins. I'm scared to hard prune much of anything else. It's said that Teas sulk and I'm afraid to prune Compte de Chambord too much. I have an old Cherry Parfait that could stand some new growth. Seems like for me the feeling is just there which ones you can get by with pruning again.

Carla

I agree with Dave that it depends on the rose. After awhile, you get used to which ones tolerate it better than others. Most of the time, I'm harvesting the blooms for cut roses, anyway. On established roses, the old dictum of cut down to the 2nd 5-leaflet leaf from bottom seems to work well and keeps me from actually having to prune them mid-season.

As an example of one that doesn't like short pruning - Queen Elizabeth. She performs better at 5-6 ft at her shortest. Shorter than that, she seems to pout for a long while before sending up anymore canes.

Ahhhh Pauline, now you have me reminiscing for Vancouver Island. We go there most years to visit the inlaws up in Campbell River. Because we be poor folk we take our van but that means we get to enjoy the ferry and the beautiful drive.

carla, I had to prune my CdC to about 2 feet. It had been loaded with buds, but it balled terribly and I was left with a bunch of moldy buds. Then it started put out new growth on top of that and it just looked awful. So now it looks like I sheared it with the hedge clippers....

Great stuff here!

Carla, I have to tell you, my husband, the whack job, that's his new name, whacked my teas back along with everything else, including, um, some climbers, and he did it before I could tell him otherwise.

Well, my precious Teas, and remember I'm very far north of you, have never been happier, bigger, bushier, since he did the deed. They're double what they were last year. What a surprise!

This is all very interesting. I was wondering about taking a few of mine down significantly about now. I feel braver now.

Ronda

I'm glad to see this thread. I was out earlier today giving my roses their post spring flush haircut and wondered if anyone else did this. I mostly grow floribundas and Austins with some climbers and shrub roses mixed in. I haven't found any of them mind being cut back about a third. I've even cut a few further back, especially if I need to move it. We're fairly cool here still so I wonder if that helps.