does hard pruning promote blooming ?

10 years ago

First of all, I want to make it clear that I am NOT talking about Hybrid Teas!!! But climbers, for example, and those annoying Austins...I am very confused about this point. Why would hard pruning encourage bloom as opposed to more green growth?

Featured Answer

oldrosarian

10 years ago

There are basically two types of climbers. Those that are bred as a climber and those which sported from a bush type rose. The third is just a bush rose that grows normally very tall and is labelled by nurseries as a climber. The sports may have a tendency to revert back to a bush if you get too mean with them while the other types can take a harder cutting. But climbers basically put out a structure to form flowers on and in most climates it takes abut 3 years. Then they have the right amount of canes and leaves to produce first class blooms with. In a perfect garden, one should try not to cut back the main canes too drastically but only shorten the smaller canes, the laterals, coming from them to about 10 inches. These canes are where the flowers will come from. As you have probably read, bending the climbing rose's main canes sideways encourages more laterals to break from these canes and so more flowers. But what do you do if you don't own 10 acres and live in a 3 story mansion and the climber has to grow on a trellis? Then you can let the middle canes grow tall, cut the side main canes down in steps so they will flower at different heights. This gives the climber a bushy look and more flowers. Bending canes simply stops the hormones from roaring up to the top of the rose, bending makes the hormone slow down so they have time to push out laterals. Shortening canes and keeping them shorter, will also make more side branches.

The older Austins should have enough of the older rose blood types in them to take a good hit with the pruners. The modern ones may complain but I have never been able to kill any Austin rose, even when I fell on it. Pruning can become very confusing. Rose shrubs are the only books that have a whole chapter devoted to explaining how to prune them. So you study up on how to do it, pick up your pruners and step smartly out into the garden. You stand in front of the rose, clippers poised, and then break down into uncontrollable weeping. The book doesn't relate to that rose at all. Hard pruning in some roses just makes them mad because they have to reach a certain height before they flower or until make enough leaves. Others get very mad and grow vigorously but they too have to have enough on hand to make flowers or I should say attractive, healthy ones.

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Comments (8)

jacqueline9CA
10 years ago
Who says it does? I pruned my Graham Thomas fairly hard one year, and it did not bloom until it had grown up about another 2-3 feet. Climbers are notorious for not blooming much if you frustrate their need to be a certain height.

Jackie
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zack_lau z6 CT ARS Consulting Rosarian
10 years ago
last modified: 10 years ago
Rose canes do become non-productive with age. I usually remove the old canes that either haven't bloomed or have produced very poor stems (the previous season) in the early Spring, before the roses have started leafing out. As I cut them off at the bud union, there is nothing to leaf out prematurely.
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dublinbay z6 (KS)
10 years ago
last modified: 10 years ago
I've always followed zack's practice with my climbers--except once when I gave a valued climber a drastic prune--why I did it, I no longer remember, but what I do remember is that that climber really resented being treated that way and refused to do much blooming for the next couple years. It never did regain its height and former blooming glory. In that case, my excessive pruning seemed to have permanently damaged it. Then we had a particularly brutal winter, and the climber faded away the following season. : (

On Austins, I don't think they like drastic pruning either. Austin has so many roses that maybe some do and some don't, but I grow a little over a dozen of them, and none of mine like drastic pruning--which I sometimes have to do because of winter damage to the bush.

Now Hybrid Teas--they like drastic pruning. Because of our cold winters, the damaged canes have to be cut back to about 2 - 10 inches tall. Give them about a month, and they are growing again like crazy!

Kate
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Embothrium
10 years ago
last modified: 10 years ago
Bloom comes on new growth, it's not one or the other. If a plant has become all twiggy hard renewal pruning can promote a percentage of vigorous new growth which then blooms more than the old growth was. But otherwise in general the more you prune off the less energy base there is left to produce new growth - and bloom. That's why it was found in a British study that non selective shearing of bush roses across the top like a hedge resulted in more overall growth and therefore more flowers than the old opening up of the center.
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Buford_NE_GA_7A
10 years ago
You can't put all pruning in one category. I guarantee that if you prune HTs or climbing Austins with a hedge clipper, they will not bloom that well (and will look like heck). If you are growing your Austins as climbers you do NOT prune the long canes. you arch them or bend them horizontally. What you do prune are the lateral branches that come off of the long canes. Those are the ones that produce the flowers and you want to produce new flowers. If one of the long canes is old or damaged, you take it out at the base, you don't prune it's length. If you do, it will never grow long again.
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ozmelodye
10 years ago
Couldn't agree more, Buford. Been there, done that with the hedge shears. 1st year was OK but by 2nd year everything was so overgrown it needed double the time and trouble to get to the older canes to remove them. Probably great for commercial growers but I don't recommend it for home use. Melodye
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Original Author
10 years ago
Thank you all!!! basically what you've all said more or less confirms my own thoughts and practices on the matter . At this point, I suspect that probably the issue with most of my "problem children" roses is likely to be lack of nutrients due to all my soil issues,rather than overly conservative pruning.