How would you prune this year old hybrid tea. The stems are only about the size of a lead pencil.

I don't see any dead or diseased wood, so I'd mostly let it be. Roses don't NEED to be pruned if the canes are healthy and branching out as well as yours are. You could tip prune a bit (an inch or two) off the ends if the canes look scruffy to stimulate a bit of growth, but in zone 6 you're still a bit too early to do this. Particularly for a year-old HT I'd celebrate the nicely branched and full bush you have and let it grow as it is. Good job on your first year of rose parenthood!

Cynthia

Pruning has always been a mystery to me. I have 18 hybrid teas. Some are 6' high and I usually cut them down to about 12 ' to an outside bud. Is that correct? It has been a mild winter and I see very few black canes. I should still prune, shouldn't I?

Not an expert on these things, but being lazy, I only do heavy pruning when I want to encourage branching. Now I might have to do heavy pruning on all my roses due to RRD (which tends to start at the tips). I have learned from this forum that people prune differently, and there might not be a "right" or "wrong" way to it. I

Your plan seem to be very well branches for a hybrid tea, and if it were me, I probably will just cut off the dead woods in the spring.

I've read that roses need a certain number of leaves (let's guess 30) to support each bloom. The more canes you have therefore, the more leaves those canes can support and the more blooms you have. That's why there's really no need to prune much on a rose that already has a lot of healthy canes, and it may slow things down. If you have a "one-cane wonder" you are likely to prune it as you describe dmoore, to encourage it to branch out more from lower canes. From this picture, the rose you show is already well branched and pruning as drastically as 12" would likely delay bloom without providing you all that much benefit from a bushier plant.

Sometimes roses that are 6' high we prune back to below the height we want the blooms so the rose doesn't try to keep growing and bloom even higher than 6'. Many roses can grow in a "candelabra" pattern branching out from the place pruned, so that's why some sources recommend pruning as low as you describe, to make sure the candelabra starts low. Again, you don't need to do any of this for a rose that already has a good bush shape to start with and doesn't have much dead wood.

Bottom line from my perspective is that it wouldn't hurt it to prune it back to 12" but there's certainly no reason to, and I don't see that it would do anything to help the bush. Just trim off anything that looks dead and enjoy the break from the work. Don't let pruning be a mystery - if it's dead, cut it off. If it's not dead, it's your choice, and mostly I prune then just to encourage the bush to shape itself a little more symmetrically.

Cynthia

I don't prune until around April 1st here is zone 6a. I am just getting some advance information

I just finished pruning this morning as no more frost is forecasted for the next two weeks. Depending on how the 'good' buds are positioned I pruned down to anything between 4 and 12 inches. Took away some crossing canes, too thin ones and a little dead wood.

now I'll watch how things develop and make some adjustments in a month to six weeks from now. I also applied some pelletized cow/chicken manure. When most of the leaves have developed I give them a rose fertilizer, about half the amount prescribed. In May I'll apply a 2" layer of semi-composted shredded leaves. That routine works fine around here in my climatzone.

1. Don't do anything yet. Wait until the forsythia blooms. Might be March, might be early April

2. if you can get to the van der Goot Rose Garden at Colonial Park in Somerset on March 18 between 8 am - 12 pm, there will be a hands-on pruning demonstration. A bunch of us will be taking care of the front beds, happy to have you along.

3. I never prune down lower than half during the first pruning of a new (less than three year old) rose. The frame (main canes) of this looks good. I would take out some of the smaller, secondary canes, but that's not essential.

4. You don't have to DO anything at all. Wait until it blooms, then do any touch up shaping as needed.

Now that's a really nicely grown rose bush you have there, and for just its first year's growth! Congratulations!

It's too early to prune yet. It's always best to be a little late than to be early. The late frosts we usually get wreck havoc on new growth. You want to delay shoot break as long as possible to avoid them.

Wait at least until the forsythia and daffodils have been blooming for at least 10 days to two weeks. Then prune. Even though the upper shoots will be leafing out well by then, they are the 'sacrificial lambs,' so to say. The dormant shoot buds lower down the stems are what you want to keep from growing as long as possible to avoid them breaking dormancy too early, then getting frosted.

Looks like you have about ten canes emerging from about ground level, each one having laterals, too. As I said, its a nicely grown bush! Prune out the ones that look dead to where they look alive by 1" increments starting at the cane's tip until you see white or creamy pith, then stop pruning that cane. Some canes may be dead all the way to the ground, so you prune them to the ground.

Select the 3 to 5 (no more than 5), huskiest canes, those that are at least as thick as a pencil, and cut all the others out as far down to the crown as possible. Make sure the canes you selected to leave on the bush are radiating out evenly, in all directions from the base. You don't want them all on one side of the bush.

Now make your cut just below the lowest lateral or side branch of your retained canes. The canes still on the bush should all be about 10" to 16" tall at this point. They should look like sticks coming out of the ground with no side branches.

Now look at the pith of the cut edges of the bush's canes again. If they are white or creamy colored the wood is healthy. If the color is tan, ochre, or beige cut down the stem by little, 3/4" increments until the color is white or creamy, trying to prune them to an outward facing bud eye after good wood is reached. If one or more canes are much taller than the others, that's OK. When the bush grows out the over all shape will be fine.

I cannot emphasize how important it is to prune back to good, white/creamy pith wood. Half dead canes eventually die, taking the weak growth they struggled to push out with them.

If stem borers are a problem in your area put a nice dab of tree wound gunk on each cane's cut edge.

That's it, you're done. This is my recommended way to prune a hybrid tea.

Thanks for the great advice. All the stems on the picture I included are no bigger than a pencil. Some people says do nothing as the wood is green and healthy. Do you think I should only save four or five canes and cut the rest to the ground?

You stated that your bush is a hybrid tea. The directions I gave you are textbook directions for pruning a hybrid tea. That's all I can tell you.

I think you should answer the questions. Is the rose own-root or grafted, and what is the variety? Some roses will need those thin canes to make energy to produce the canes you want. Others are wasting energy on those thin canes.

All your roses look just right to me. I wouldn't do anything else with them. They have the appearance that they will make strong bushes for the rest of the year. Mad Gallica is right in that one does prune differently if the rose is either an own root or a budded A budded rose will usually have the strength to bounce back from hard pruning, but an own root may not be able to. A rose book is the only book that devotes a whole chapter to pruning and many of the routines have been proven not necessary or detrimental to the rose bush. Such as never cut roses way back to the ground. Cut off about one third down, no more. Very hard pruning effects the roots and tests have proven on own roots that their roots are not as strong and healthy. Don't worry about your roses, they will do well for you.

Most of the time I have to cut almost to the ground because I live in zone 6a and most winters go below zero from time to time. This winter has been very mild so I may be able to cut some of them down from 5 feet to 3 feet!

The rose in the picture is called moonlight magic and I bought it potted from Lowes last spring. Don't know if it is a own root or budded