I do not cut back until Spring March/April....BUT my roses are mostly only 4ft-5ft high...

If I had a 7-8 footer I would do the same thing you did...lol

It shot out 4 feet after it's 3rd flush cut. Some buds open, some developed but not. I cut them all.....just to give it time to heal and also more time to get ready to sleep.

I thought dormant would be the best but when I did it mid-winter, compared to canes I didn't touch, the ones I pruned mid-winter showed more die-back

1. a1an, at my old house I watched my neighbor cut there shrub roses to the ground every November....And for 26 years I watched them come back every Spring..lol

Here we are on the interwebs yaaaaaking about roses....

In the grand scheme of things, we're probably guilty of over-watering, over-caring, over-pruning,over-feeding and the long laundry list that follows

I don't think cutting it down from 7' to 4.5' is going to hurt anything, since you can do a shaping pruning about any time. I also don't suspect that it's necessary if it's already robustly established, but I don't think it'd be a problem now. In general I don't find the need to cut anything down in the fall and I wait till early spring, but that's my strategy. I'm not a fan of cutting roses down to 6" like some folks do, but like Jim says the shrub roses can handle it.

Cynthia

I moderately prune in spring only, and the majority of my roses are huge. I've never lost a rose to the cold and I don't do any winter protecting, but then I'm zone 7, SW Idaho, hot summers and dry, semi arid. Diane

It's not the height to finished height of the cut of the OP. As we have mild low 70's - mid 60's night temps, fall is upon us. Tree leaves to some degree are tired and you can see some here and there that have falled.

In -best practice- taking a cut here and there on one rose I suppose is less invigorating but on this one particular one, about 80% of them was just way up high. I've been hemming and hawing whether to prune it (mainly as half of them has blooms set that have not yet opened) but I ended up doing it, mainly as in my mind, I'm giving it solid time to heal that cut before going into winter.

Isn't the general rule to some degree is don't prune going into winter as you don't want to push growth and let it sleep....

The best thing you can do for as much cane survival as possible come spring pruning, when the daffodils and forsythia are blooming (this pertains to cold zone gardeners, zone 6 "ish" and lower), is to let all the canes remain unpruned. That's even those canes that are monstrously long. Find a way to tie them to something to keep them from flailing in the winter winds. Doesn't have to look pretty, just practical.

This is especially true for canes that have hips on their tips. I believe canes with hips are like thermometers for those canes so endowed. They seal the canes and help prevent the black, creeping spring canker better than any masterful fall/winter made pruning cut, and send meteorological messages to the bush about the weather that helps prevent premature bud break. This is especially necessary in those locales where killing freeze and thaw, freeze and thaw....goes on all early spring long.

Just some thoughts of mine, no science I know of to back me up. Plus it's nicer for me to be outside in spring, pruning away, instead of wearing out my old nerves, worrying and fretting about how and what I should prune in the fall or winter to prevent cane dieback and winter wind damage to killer long canes.

Moses

This post is blatant hijacking, and for that I apologize, but I must seize the moment. Moses writes: "They seal the canes and help prevent the black, creeping spring canker better than any masterful fall/winter made pruning cut, and send meteorological messages to the bush about the weather that helps prevent premature bud break. This is especially necessary in those locales where killing freeze and thaw, freeze and thaw....goes on all early spring long. "

What I want to discuss is this "BLACK, CREEPING...CANKER". What has been happening to my new implants in the past 2-3 years is that they start out fine in the spring, growing and blooming,and continue looking good through June. Even in July, when the heat becomes so extreme it's dangerous,they seem to hold their own. Then-WHAM! August begins and they start getting that "BLACK,CREEPING CANKER"!!!!! I think that this might be due to temperature swings; I remember that in August 2023 the temperatures dropped drastically from months of extreme highs down to what used to be normal summer temperatures or lower. Many roses got this canker; I got sick, too. This year a similar thing happened, though it was more just that evening temperatures suddenly went down to normal; again this canker.

This past summer I improved my watering and put up shade cloth during June,thinking that it was sun-burn, but it still happened, so now I think it might be this sort of canker of which Moses writes. None of the plants had been pruned in any way.This has only begun in recent years,BTW.

Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas on how to combat this?

I have not had dieback from spring pruning and I'm absolutely freaking guilty for doing the spring pruning easily a few weeks if not a month+ before forsynthia starts to bloom. As a wild guess, it can be as early as 1st Week of March or if there is a easy 2 day streak of warm weather. After doing the winter cleanup, getting rid of wind blown leaves, sticks, etc with the blower, out comes the secauters for stuff to be pruned to be added to winter garden debris pile top be tossed.

a1an, what zone are you, and in what major city do you live/live nearest? I wish the creeping, black, spring canker was not an issue for my roses here in the 'Burgh.

Moses

IME, roses with a fair amount of tea rose in their background really don't want to go dormant. It doesn't matter what you do, or don't do with the pruners, they won't go dormant until nightly lows get in the low 20's. Withholding water also works, but that can be hard to do with in ground roses in an eastern climate. I've done it with tender potted roses that can be moved in out of the rain.

I haven't had dieback from spring pruning. What I have had is canker dieback from stuff (mostly leaves) accumulating around the crowns of susceptible roses. I don't know if clearing out the crowns in February-March would help because usually they are under some snow then.

East End LI. Right on the water. I have not had any issues or even concerns remotely about spring canker....

I only learned my lesson on the 1st and last time I did a mid-winter (in my mind dormant prune) and I definately noticed dieback on the ones where I made some height cuts......versus the ones I did not touch.

Hence, the lopping of the taller ones at this current time. I'd rather let it heal off than me seeing wind whipping canes and me wanting to prune those canes mid-winter.

Bart Bart, I have had tremendous difficulty like you with what I call the Black Finger of Death. I find it affects new grafted roses more than own root, but that is unscientific. It might have something to do with the maturity of the canes, but I think from feedback I've gotten it has more to do with damage and handling from cuts to mature canes from the vendors.

I had a pseudo-scientific comparison this spring that I posted under "why can't I grow roses from one vendor". I had consistent risk of canker from one vendor that wasn't present for the most part from other vendors. From that vendor, I had the canes leaf out fine then inevitably over the space of about 3 months develop the Black Finger of Death that I couldn't stop by pruning ahead of it.

The input I got to my thread suggested that the issue might be fungal infection that was introduced by the pruning. In my zone, few roses get by without at least some pruning in spring, so there is the potential for fungal infections at any point. What I'll try as an intervention from the problematic bare root vendor is to do a dip with a fungicide preventatively when planting into pots, and watch them and religiously prune ahead of any canker that develops.

For established roses, it seems like any cuts that affect the surviving cane (maybe stripping off a little bit of the outer level of the remaining cane when cut) are liable to get canker. On the other hand, some roses shake it off. Clean cuts might help, but I suspect if you're seeing consistent canker on established roses some sort of fungal treatment when cutting might be preventative. I've seen speculation that some canker is a form of downy mildew, but in my dry climate that wouldn't be my first guess.

Bottom line is that we're struggling with it too and it's something of a mystery. Probably fungal, so experiment with what controls it before it gets started, and cut well ahead of it cleanly if you see it on canes.

Cynthia

How clean is your leaf debris around the roses.

It usually takes like a few hard frost before the soil/mulch is frozen. I tend to wait for this period as well during winter to try to blow out clean all the beds. My goal is frozen mulch will stay and I won't blow it all away.

*In-evitably*, I tend to get carried away and more often than not, I end up blowing my beds too clean......removing some mulch with it. Kinda, sorta okay with that to some degree, just in case any leaves remain....