I would say if you don't like the way they look now I would prune them now. Afterwards, mulch and water them well, and I would apply some organic fertilizer like alfalfa meal to encourage them to put out new growth as quickly as possible. If they're in full sun you might try shading them if the plants seem to droop in the heat.

Ingrid

Ok they're not quite 7 feet long, I was just in a rage about them and exaggerating a bit, but they do look pretty wild. And you know it seems like since they haven't been damaged before by the way I was pruning them then I should just go on pruning them that way, right? When they were more controlled it seemed like they put more energy into producing nice blooms instead of growing these ridiculous climbing canes.

It's correct to say you should prune in early spring, not in fall. It's not correct to say hybrid tea roses need little pruning. They should be cut back to stumps between 1' and 3' tall as spring growth is just starting to appear. Lower pruning will give you more foliage close to the ground. Higher pruning will give you leggier plants but probably more flowers over all.

Given your zone, I think it would be fine to cut the plants back to 3-4' now, or let the stems bloom first if they are budding.

Thank you. I think I will prune canes down as they finish blooming. I always clip off spent blooms anyway.

I concur with what the other posters have said.

I just wanted to reassure you that DD will not be harmed by more severe pruning in early, early spring. Where I live, hybrid teas tend to die back quite a bit and thus have to be pruned back to 3-6 inches in some cases. Never has that hurt my DDs (two of them)--in fact, they just get better with each passing year.

By the way, if it weren't for die-back, I wouldn't prune my HTs back that much, but when that's all the live wood left, you do what you gotta do! : )

Kate

Were these Rose Society ladies or just garden club ladies? If you have questions about roses you should always check with your local Rose Society. I gave a talk to a local Garden Club and they knew a lot about gardens but very little about roses.

I don't prune in the fall or winter but in early spring when they begin to bud out. Then you can prune hybrid teas hard and it will set them up for a good season of bloom. But since you didn't do that this spring I'd go ahead and prune them back to sizable wood now and let them regrow and bloom. The reason your blooms are smaller is partly because of those spindly canes. Cut out anything that isn't at least as thick as a pencil. Those are the ones that will give you canes that will hold up a decent size bloom. Anything smaller and you'll have floppy roses. Because it's later in the season I wouldn't cut back to 6 or 10 inches like I would in the spring but maybe to 18 to 24 inches high and go from there. Give them some balanced fertilizer and watch them grow the way you're used to!

Yeah it was a "gardening club" and not specifically for roses. Actually I think most of the people don't have a ton of rose bushes either. But they meant well, I can't blame them too much, I'm the one who got paranoid. Thanks for the help, now I have a more specific idea of how to handle the DD's. And the rest of my roses for that matter.