Pruning Roses
Florida roses are high-maintenance plants, but growing roses can be a rewarding hobby for those who like to spend time in the garden each week. Pruning will help keep your plants healthy and looking good.
Introduction
Florida's high light intensity, warm temperatures, and mild winters allow roses to grow year-round, so you will need to maintain your roses throughout the entire year.
During warmer months, roses in Florida grow more than they would in northern states. More flowers are produced during summer than during cooler seasons, but during the cooler season, the flowers have more petals and more intense colors.
In colder regions, methods such as severe pruning and covering the plants are used to prevent injury to roses. Throughout Florida, these methods are unnecessary because the weather seldom gets cold enough to injure the mature wood of established rose bushes. However, you still need to do a certain amount of pruning to maintain the health and beauty of your plants.
Grooming
Grooming consists of selectively trimming your plants at monthly intervals to keep them healthy, attractive, and productive. Removing faded flowers improves the plants' appearance and prevents fruit development. Grooming conserves food material for additional growth.
To produce exhibition flowers, remove the lateral flower buds as they form, allowing only one bud to mature on each stem. To regulate when particular varieties bloom, pinch out all flower buds as they form until twenty-eight to thirty-four days before flowering is desired.
To encourage growth and to help to establish a new plant, remove flower buds during the first two months after planting. The first flowers allowed to develop should be cut with short stems so that as much foliage as possible on the plant. Plants should be well established before flowers are cut with longer stems, and then only cut the length of stem needed.
Remove suckers--leafy shoots--that develop from the rootstock below the graft union by breaking them off rather than by cutting in order to remove all basal buds. Rootstock suckers can be recognized by their location and their different leaf appearance. To learn more, contact your county Extension office.
Remove dead wood and canes showing symptoms of stem disease as soon as you notice them. Cut the affected part back to the healthy wood and remove the affected part from the garden area.
Pruning
In central and northern Florida, prune your roses once each year during December or January. In southern Florida, you may need to prune twice a year to keep plants to a manageable size. These two prunings can be scheduled during March and late August to avoid interrupting winter flowering.
Major yearly pruning consists of removing twigs and branches that are dead, diseased, injured, unsightly, or thin and spindly, as well as some healthy top growth. Shortening main canes and lateral branches and removing small twigs and some of the oldest canes improves the plant's form, regulates its height, and produces better light conditions within the plant.
Leave at least half the length of each main cane that is one to three years old. The first flowers can be expected eight to nine weeks after pruning.
To avoid dieback and encourage rapid healing, pruning cuts should be made just above a dormant bud (eye). When an entire branch is removed, make a smooth cut at the point of juncture.
Cutting Flowers
Before cutting flowers, consider the arrangement in which they are to be used. Larger, more open flowers to be used low in a container need less stem length than tighter buds to be used for height.
Cut buds after the green sepals fold back toward the stem and the outside petals loosen and start to unfurl. Blooms cut in tighter bud will fail to open.
To cut flowers, use a sharp knife or pruning shears. Make a clean cut just above a well-developed, five-leaflet leaf. Dieback may result from leaving a ragged cut or a long stub above the dormant bud.
Excerpted and adapted from:
Rose Culture (Circular 344) by S.E. McFadden and R.J. Black. Published by: Environmental Horticulture Department (rev. 6/2004)
