Haha maybe she thought all the new growth was Rose Rosette Disease and was quickly cutting it off so noone would be the wiser? I shouldn't even joke about that but couldn't resist lol.

If the new growth was wilted/damaged from weather maybe. Then it would look appealing to customers. The dormant roses or potted roses are growing. No other good reason to remove growth. Did you see any roses healthy with growing leaves?

No, all the roses have shiny healthy new growth & the clippings in her cart were healthy looking too. She was systematically going thru every one. You could tell which ones were done, they were naked as heck in nest rows. The ones awaiting her scissors were in the next half of the display, nicely fleshed out since the last time I shopped there a week ago. I should've asked her but I was in a hurry.

The managers may know little about rose gardening and may have told the worker that pruning off growth would keep them dormant or promote root growth. Neither is true. Some people think pruning off new growth before they are planted puts all their energy into the roots. I dissagree. When they start growing leaves , the leaves absorb sunlight and start photosynthesis to make food-carbs (sugar) for the rose. The leaves also help it to do respiration which helps moving the food around in the plant Finally, the leaves help the rose to do transpiration, moving water around in the plant, moving minerals and organic compounds through it. The leaves also draw customers who see a plant looking healthy and beautiful. Also, every time you prune, it tells the rose, to grow new leaves…and canes grow…. grow… grow…” It wants to grow greenry!” Pruning tells it to grow greenery! it needs greenery to grow altogether-to make food, breath, and transport what it needs. I think cutting off canes/leves just forces it to work harder to grow more canes/leaves. It needs them! A happy rose has more canes/leaves!

My guess is because the growth gets tangled in the limited space they give those roses. And people just wrestle them out probably knocking over other roses and damaging the canes ? I’m actually surprised how many roses my Home Depot still has ( unless they got more shipped in ) vs my local nurseries. I spent Sunday driving around and a lot of roses had sold out already that I was looking for .

HD still has full standing crate shelves of them and a whole table too .

I hope they get in their clematis soon , they always have some goodies!

That makes me cringe - and I hope her clippers don't contaminate the whole lot.