Pruning does not have to be a daunting task for any rose grower. When roses are healthy and happy with their culture, they are very forgiving about pruning. The reasons for pruning are to make the shrub more vigorous, to promote profuse blooming, discourage disease and to shape  as needed. Dormant pruning and summer pruning have different purposes, so we will discussed them separately. There are also different techniques for pruning tender roses and hardy shrub roses. Tender roses are those that must be protected for the winter by covering or tipping. Hardy shrub roses are those that do not need special protection once established.
All roses are shrubs, not just those referred to as "shrub roses". Shrubs are pruned very lightly until well established and roses are no exception. Until a rose bush is beginning its third season, remove only what you must. For tender roses that are protected in winter by covering or tipping, prune just enough to fit them under the cover or in the trench. Don't be in such hurry to protect your roses for the winter that you cut them back before the leaves have been killed by frost. That is their signal for dormancy. Unless you have to prune the roses back in fall to facilitate wintering, in our climate it is best to do all the dormant pruning in early spring as the buds begin to swell. At this time you will be able to tell what is damaged or winter-killed and the plant will have had the use of the sugars and starches that it stored in the stems.

Tools and Techniques
To prune roses you need  pruners and  good, stout gloves. Most rose growers prefer a bypass pruner. This type has a scissors action and makes a cleaner cut than an anvil pruner. Make sure your pruner is sharp to minimize crushing the stems. You may need a lopper (long handled pruner) or a pruning saw or both to remove big, dead canes. When you have finished, the cuts on larger canes should be dressed with a pruning sealer that is either a wax-based product sold for roses or white glue. Don't use the asphalt type of sealer. Pruning cuts should be made about 1/4 inch above an outward facing bud. Make the cut on a slant away from the bud, rather than straight across.

Dormant Pruning Tender Roses
When tender roses are raised or uncovered in spring, remove all dead or damaged wood. Cut all canes thinner than a pencil (except on miniature roses) back to the bud union or graft (the swelling where the plant is grafted to the roots.) Remove any canes that crowd the center of the bush or rub on other canes. With most tender roses choose the strongest 4 to 5 canes that would result in a balanced bush and remove all the rest. On more vigorous growers leave 6 to 10 canes. Shorten the canes that are not removed to 12 inches on bushes that are normally short and 24 inches on the taller varieties. Make each cut as described above.

Dormant Pruning  Hardy Shrub Roses
Shrub roses need less pruning than tender roses. Depending on the severity of the winter, there may be some winter-kill to remove. Many hardy roses are grown on their own roots and those will come back even if killed to the ground. All dead and damaged wood should be removed in spring. Older, less productive canes growing in the heart of the bush can be completely removed too. This will open up the center of the bush to sunlight so that it will bloom better and have better air circulation, resulting in fewer diseases.  Lastly, on medium to short varieties, to encourage lateral growth cut the remaining canes back by about 1/3 their length. With taller varieties, you may elect to skip this last step to allow them to reach their full stature each season.

Dormant Pruning of Climbing Roses
With climbing roses, it is especially important to wait until a rose bush's third season to do much pruning. They need to be well established. True climbing roses, like 'New Dawn', need winter protection in Minnesota as for other tender roses. Since winter protection of a tender climber entails covering or burying a much taller plant than usual, the taller hardy shrub roses are often used instead. True climbers are thinned rather than cut back. Only damaged wood is removed from the healthy canes. Older, less productive canes are removed at their base. The remaining canes are tied to their support and the ends bent down to encourage greater blooming along their length. After their first bloom (if they are repeat bloomers) cut all side branches (laterals) back to 2 or 3 buds.

This should encourage the rose to flower again. Repeat this process after the next bloom. Four rounds of bloom may be possible in a good season, but 2 or 3 are typical in our climate. Don't prune after around August 15 - that would promote new growth that will be more frost tender than the rest. Hardy shrub roses used as climbers need very little pruning. Thin them by removing the oldest or weakest canes as the plant grows too large for the space. Otherwise, simply remove dead, damaged or weak wood in early spring.

Summer Pruning for All Roses
When actively growing in the summer, the goal of pruning is to promote more flowering. Basically, this means removing spent flowers as they begin to fade. When flowers are pollinated, the process of seed formation begins and new bud formation slows down or stops. Removing the spent flowers will encourage the plant to try again, which means more flowers. However, since the formation of the hips which hold the seed also helps signal the plant for dormancy, stop summer pruning in mid-August. Cutting flowers for indoor display is pruning too, so do as little of it as possible late in the season. Pruning late in the growing season results in tender new growth that is easily killed by the approaching winter. The cutting technique for summer pruning is the same as that for dormant pruning: cut on an angle about 1/ 4 inch above an outward facing bud. The buds are very hard to see in summer, but since they are in the axils of the leaves, the rule becomes "above an outward facing leaf". Since it takes a leaf with 5 to 7 leaflets to support a new flower, cut back to one that size. The leaves immediately below a blossom often have fewer than 5 leaflets. One last technique: on roses that bloom in clusters, cut back below the entire cluster once all have bloomed. The buds that will form a new cluster are found below the stem that formed the old cluster.

Dealing with Suckers
Suckers are shoots that come from the roots or from the stem below the graft union. If the rose is grafted, you only want growth from above the graft. These shoots are the same plant as the understock of the rose and are not at all like the top. They were chosen for their vigor and hardiness, not for their bloom. If left to grow they will eventually crowd and starve out the rose you purchased, leaving you with something almost always undesirable. Unfortunately, you can't just cut them off. If you leave any kind of stub it will just sprout multiple new suckers. You will be much more successful if you trace the sucker to its origin and cut it flush with the stem or root it came from. Some rose growers simply push the sucker down hard until it is torn from the stem below the soil. This is often the easiest for suckers on the stem, but does have some potential for allowing diseases to enter the tear. Suckers can be removed anytime they are identified. If your roses are growing on their own root stock, suckering will only increase the size of the bush and should be considered a good thing. When purchasing roses, always be sure to find out whether they are growing on their own root or grafted so you will know if you need to watch for suckers.

©Bachman's 2007