Exactly what Moses said!

Thank you! Do I prune the dead off after all the old mulch has been removed? Appreciate your time and effort to post that back to me.

Thanks Moses. I unclothed a barely alive Barkarole today, thinking the pine bark nuggets were contributing to the black necrosis low down on the remaining cane. It was warm and dry today; no new basal shoots in sight. But I will pile them back on tomorrow and pray for the best.

Nick,

Unfortunately, we in colder zones often have to do two spring prunings at about a month or so apart.

At the first pruning, done at the time the daffodils and forsythias are blooming, canes are cut back to live wood, white/creamy/buttery (natural butter, containing no artificial coloring), piths that are showing at the pruning cuts. Any precocious bud break on the pruned away, upper portions of the canes are the sacrificial lambs. Because of apical dominance they broke dormancy first and may be a couple inches long at first pruning time. Their early breaking prevented the lower buds from breaking their dormancy. This is a good thing, because the inevitable late spring frosts that can come through the end of May, do very little damage to the suppressed buds remaining on the canes.

I leave all top growth in the fall, no pruning then, even touch up pruning, knowing the upper portions of them will show precocious/premature bud break by pruning time come spring. They therefore inhibit early, vulnerable bud break on the lower portions of the canes. After the first pruning, the cane portions left start breaking dormancy, and late frosts do little or no damage to them, since they are just waking up.

All black, dead canes and partially dead (discolored, cankered, or blackened sections), are cut back to live wood with good piths at the first pruning. Sometimes, unfortunately, you end up pruning back some canes to the crown.

Depending on how severe the winter was and also depending on the hardiness of the variety of rose, damage at the first pruning does not manifest itself then. It's very discouraging to see further dying, canker spreading down healthy looking previously pruned canes, canes that were live looking canes just a couple weeks ago. Those further damaged/dying canes were already severely damaged at the first pruning time, but the bacteria did not start devouring those seemingly healthy canes yet.

Therefore, a second pruning is called for, about a month after the first pruning.

Moses

Rifis,

Sorry about Barkarole, hope it sends up basal canes. You have to strategize like crazy when growing roses where winter cold is a major cultural issue.

Moses

Moses, I cannot tell you how appreciative I am of your at length & such informative posts. It means so much to me, don't think I have ever gotten such a helpful post on my roses! Thanks again.

Thank you, Nick. We learn best through our failures and disasters more than through our successes. That's how growing roses is. Fortunately, the successes do come.

Moses

technically, I'm 13 months in on my BR plantings. AKA, 1 year anniversary. It was a mild winter, Pruned mine around the 3rd week of February. Figured it was best during dormancy ? I just looked for the buds in which direction and away I pruned. Did I prune too early based on some of the responses here. All of them have leafed out quite nice and bushy sofar.

The one thing I did notice on 1 stronger cane on one rose, was that as soon as it got warmer, there was alot on -sap- coming out of that 1 stronger cane. My daffodils just started blooming few days ago, so if I had waited till then, that would have been, um, er, 4-5 weeks later than the pruning I did ?

Nickjoseph, you can prune off dead wood any time throughout the year. If it's dead it's doing no good for the plant and taking out can do no harm.

As Moses said, I always have to do two prunings here in Michigan. My first one is about this time of year, early April when the forsythia blooms, and the second one sometime in May after it has totally warmed up and they have fully leafed out. The first pruning I cut to live cane but for some reason some more usually dies back a little and I have to reprune. Once they leaf out you can see for certain what is alive and cut off any remaining dead wood.

seil, I never pruned before probably April anyway due to pruning dead off just encouraged new growth & energy expended for it to die if too early.

Nick thanks for asking this question, as I have wondered the same thing. In my area near Madison, my last frost is usually a few days before April 15th, I keep track every year so I order roses to be delivered April 23rd. I knew someone with a lot of experience would be able to answer this well, and so glad that Moses picked up the baton. Thank you Moses!

Our one splotch of daffodils has all green leaves, but no flowers yet. Good indicator to when to move mulch & prune.

This year's insane. I just finished pruning and I already have buds on Summer Romance, Darcey Bussell and Marie Pavie. I'm sure there are others, but I couldn't believe it. This is by far the earliest bud set EVER.

Great advise from Moses, but when he says when the forsythia blooms, I recommend not running out when the first few flowers open, but when the bush is near peak bloom. This can vary from a week or two to three depending on how close you are to Lake Michigan.

I live in Kenosha. Also keep an eye on the extended forecast for evening low temperatures.

Exactly. This also corresponds to when the weeping cherry bloom around here I've noticed. My neighbor removed they forsythia, so I kept waiting for the bloom only to take an alternate way home and realized they were in full flush!!! I just couldn't believe I literally pruned just last wee and they are literally setting bloom now!!! I wonder if the lows we have coming will set them back? What a crazy Spring.

So As of this past Saturday, April 18th, I removed the collars off of the 12 rosebushes. The bushes had many skinny tall stems greening up, but with weird looking tiny purple/wine colored leaves (no, not rosette). I just ended up doing probably more pruning than I should have. (blame it on the being cooped up for what seems like forever....). I looked at how far back I pruned, thinking....'Why did I prune that low???' Too late now. There are green stems on all of them, but one or two of the bushes have more dead than green. I forget from year to year how far down I prune, but I think I pruned lower than in the past. I know in Milwaukee, WI, back in November we had a horrible cold/freeze. I wonder (since that would always be way too early to winterize) if that brief freeze did a 'number' on my bushes. I'm hoping that by June, they will have gotten taller & leafier with buds. Arghhhhhh The rosebush that looks the worst is the Happy Go Lucky yellow one (my only yellow) that I was told was a very vibrant bush. It did beautifully when I first planted it about 2 years ago. this past Summer I noticed a number of roses, but not as big as the first year. I wanted a healthy yellow that was resistant to black spot which seems to happen a lot in our area.

I have many leaves like those due to extra cold temps. :-(( Those early low temps did a number on my potted babies although I had sheltered them. I lost so many including small rooted cuttings.

Nick... Moses gave you excellent information regarding spring pruning. I would only add that for the canes that are larger than a pencil, you may want to seal the cut, to keep insects out. Moses, I normally do not prune in the fall, with the exception of a few canes that are very tall. I just cut them back enough so, strong winds will not break the cane. For different reasons, I missed doing it last fall. We had a mild winter and all was fine. Last week, we had some very strong winds and sure enough, I found a very large, strong cane on the ground!

super grateful for this thread--was wondering when to start, myself!