Winter Pruning Carpet Roses

How to prune rose bushes for winter.

Winter pruning carpet roses.

Easy pruning tips for flower carpet roses. By producing seed pods the rose bush thinks it s done for the season and can start to go dormant. Climbing roses prune best. However carpet rose pruning does not need to be as exact and methodical as the pruning of other types of roses.

This is the time to prune the canes on all the rose bushes except the climbing roses down to about half their height. In cold winter climates pruning roses in spring is often reduced to one option. In order to make sure that the rose bushes are in good condition and will grow in the ways and directions that you d like them to it s a smart idea to prune your roses late in the winter. Marianne binetti shares the trick to pruning them.

Winter is rose pruning time and the flower carpet or other ground cover type roses are some of the easiest to prune. Like other types of roses carpet roses require pruning to maintain a tidy form. Carpet roses are a great disease resistant rose that will bring beauty to your garden year after year. Pruning roses for winter once a couple hard frosts or freezes have hit the garden the rose bushes will start to go dormant and you can start on the next step in preparing roses for winter.

Leave the last of the flowers on to turn into hips the hips are the rose s seed pods. Rose bushes will begin to blossom in the early parts of spring. Flower carpet roses produce wave after wave of blooms for months. The rose has evolved from one simple flower into an intricate collection of species and cultivars each with its own pruning rules.

Stop feeding and pruning your roses around the end of august to discourage tender new growth that will suffer from winter damage. One of the beauties of flower carpet roses is that they don t require any fancy pruning. As an extra bonus they re also self cleaning. They can be trimmed throughout the year to maintain shape and size and then once a year in late winter cut the bush back to rejuvenate and reinvigorate the plant.

When pruning focus on removing old wood that died during the winter or that looks unhealthy. Simply cut back the wood that was killed in winter. Severe pruning cut to leave three or four canes 6 to 10 inches high produces fewer but larger blooms. In warm climates pruning can be done at any of three levels depending on your purpose.

That plus their good manners and low growing habit makes them just the ticket for a flowery softly scented tidy hedge around a pool. As these shrubs send out new blooms the spent blossoms drop neatly to the ground.