Renovating Roses

“Take time to smell the roses.” – Proverb

David Austin Roses recommends pruning in late winter/early spring, when the first growth is beginning, and this is generally between January and February. Apparently, roses can be pruned earlier [ in winter], but it can be more difficult to identify the less healthy stems that may need to be cut out.

… so, there is no recommendation for pruning in June!?

However, the RHS website – in one of 718 results when searching “pruning roses” - does say that to renovate shrubs or roses with too many stems that have finished flowering after year two and for shrubs with flowers that bloom April – July, then it is okay to take out half the old stems that remain from pruning and prune back the other stems...

Deep breath!

“If the rose puzzled its mind over the question how it grew, it would not have been the miracle that it is.” – J. B. Yeats

“The world is a rose, smell it, and pass it to your friends.” – Persian Proverb

​It can be very confusing, and especially frustrating for someone who is not very patient and skirts around reading about or following the finer details. Ahem.

BBC Gardeners World has extensive advice that “pruning roses is essential for their overall health, vitality and appearance. Winter is the key rose pruning time to cut back most varieties, except rambling roses, which are pruned in summer immediately after flowering”.
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However, as I inherited a number of roses, I have no idea whether they are ramblers, climbers, bush, ground cover, floribunda, hybrid tea, polyantha, damask, gallica, centifolia, alba….

Hence my devil-may-care approach in June when upon looking on one of the tatty looking roses I decided to cut it down to basic woody stems and re-position it in the veg patch, with the attitude that it had two choices – sally-forth or demise.  So, I am somewhat smug that with suitable encouragement (blood, fish and bone, mulch and plenty of water) it has rallied round and recovered in ‘health, spirits and poise’ (dictionary definition). 

Are you not impressed with my results?