Careful pruning favors beautiful flowers and prevents fungal attack: therefore, it is important that you shorten your precious roses in spring.
Are your roses sickly and growing miserably? The wrong cut may be to blame for this! If you want to preserve your beautiful roses, you can use scissors in spring. This will ensure healthy plants in beautiful blooms.
That is why it is important to prune roses regularly
Roses need regular pruning. © Digitalpress/Imago
Wildly proliferating roses do not look beautiful for long: not only do they grow uncontrollably and the noble roses lose their typical straight shape. After a few years, the plants will also decay. That is, they grow old and hardly bloom at all. So you need a rejuvenating cut. Unkempt roses also have a higher risk of diseases such as fungal infestation.
Cutting roses: how to do it right
Roses may not be frugal, but you can't go wrong with pruning. The rule of thumb is to prune roses at the time of forsythia flowering – i.e. from March to May. However, the period depends a lot on where you live. In sunny places you start earlier, in cool Alpine regions you prefer to wait a little longer, until June.
It is important that you use a sharp pair of secateurs to avoid cuts. Bypass scissors are recommended. For particularly thick shoots, on the other hand, use pruning shears. Disinfect the scissor blades beforehand to avoid eventual infection from another plant. First, remove all dead and diseased shoots to the main trunk. After that, cut back all the thin shoots to three to five eyes. For powerful shoots, it is recommended to shorten them to about a third of their length. Be sure to cut the roses at an angle to allow rain and irrigation water to drain away. Otherwise, you risk developing fungal diseases.
How to prune noble roses
In contrast to other roses, noble roses have an upright growth habit and form few lateral shoots. Therefore, you need a special cut:
- First, trim back the tips of the roots slightly.
- Now it's the turn of the old shoots. You can recognize them by the dark bark.
- Cut strong shoots down to about 15 centimeters. Two to four eyes stop. Leave very vigorous plants up to about 40 centimeters.
- In the next step, remove all thin and weak shoots. Especially if they grow in the wrong direction and disturb the straight growth.
- At the end, about five to six basic shoots should be left standing.
- Sometimes the plant also develops wild shoots. You can recognize them by their seven-petalled foliage. It is best to simply tear off these shoots.
Caring for roses and protecting them from diseases such as powdery mildew
Even over the summer, you should grab the scissors from time to time and remove faded inflorescences. This will prevent the flower from forming seeds, because this will cost it a lot of strength. Without this stress, the rose can form new flowers and better defend itself against pests. If you regularly remove old foliage, the plant will dry faster. Thus, you reduce the risk of diseases such as powdery mildew or rose rust.
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This article was created with the help of machines and carefully reviewed by editor Larissa Strohbusch before publication.