You are not going to persuade them to do anything they don't want to do. They will grow when they want, no matter what you do.

You are trying to shape them into good looking shrubs. Wait until any snow has melted. Do it before that, and it is hard to see what the rose bush looks like. That is about my only rule. You don't want to have any below zero temperatures after pruning because the cuts are somewhat tender, but around here the big thing is waiting for the snow to melt. I try to start them early because there are other roses I have to wait on, and I usually run out of steam before I've pruned everything.

This will be my first year pruning Gallicas as well. Mine came as bands in 2013, so they're still young. I was planning to basically leave them as-is -- just nipping back the tips to the first bud -- until after the bloom. If I see any thin canes that don't bloom this year, I was thinking that I should cut them down to the soil line. Right after the bloom, I was thinking to cut them down by 1/3 to 1/2, and leave them alone until next year. Right now, they're just a group of straight stems with no branching. Mad_Gallica -- what are your thoughts on this? Here, the snow is melting away (finally!), and I'm adding a link below for my ten-day forecast. I think pruning season is about to begin for here!

:-)

~Christopher

http://www.weather.com/weather/tenday/l/08901:4:US

Christopher, I'd leave them alone this year. They are still very young, and need all the foliage they can have. Next year you can start playing with them.

There are variables in the growth habit of different roses that affect how you want to handle them. One is the lifespan of an individual cane. Anything from 2 to 6 years seems normal, but you can't do elaborate training on the shorter lived ones. Another is how likely the rose is to run. Hard pruning causes some roses to try and outrun the danger.

Thanks! I'll heed your advice. Speaking of "running" -- do Gallicas tend to do so at a shallow or deep level? I have three planted where they are a few inches above another bed, separated by railroad ties stacked two-high, with the bottom one below the soil line. Considering the level of mulch and amendments, for the Gallicas to spread into the lower bed they'd have to send runners from more than 12" below the soil line. Is that likely? I'd actually like for them to spread where they are, but not into the lower bed.

:-)

~Christopher

Hope they are just 'not that sort of rose'. Running types can easily go down 12", and to keep them out of the lower bed is going to mean digging up the whole thing.

Christopher, I've had Gallicas, planted in a 15-Gl squat in the ground, go down to the bottom of the squat -- easily 18 inches -- find their way out of the holes, travel 6-ft. across a garden pathway, and pop up just where I did not particularly want them. The only Gallica that never did that was a 'Rosa Mundi,' which was budded.

Well, we'll see what happens in the next few years.....

:-)

~Christopher

Interesting to know this, since this will be my first year planting a handful of Gallicas for the first time. Thanks for sharing.

Brian

Thanks for the advice! I'm hoping for the majority of the snow to be gone by this weekend, but we'll see. If not this weekend, then next. My gallicas are fairly young too, but 'Marianne' is so vigorous it's already 6' x 6' in just a couple of seasons!

-Chris