Prune your roses for fall

Tyler—As September rolls in, it is time to focus on giving your roses a little TLC for a showy fall bloom. Just as you mark your calendar for spring pruning on Valentine’s Day, Labor Day or soon after is the time to prune roses for the cooler months. Pruning not only keeps your roses healthy and shapely but also promotes vigorous new growth, which translates into more blooms.

When it comes to pruning roses in East Texas, the first step is to remove all dead, diseased, or damaged wood. This opens up the plant, allowing more light and air to reach the healthy canes, which is essential for strong growth. 

Next, cut back the remaining canes to encourage fresh growth. How much you cut back depends on the type of rose and its natural growth habit. For hybrid tea, grandiflora, and floribunda roses, the stars of many East Texas gardens, you will generally want to prune them down to about three feet in the fall. Taller varieties may be pruned to around four feet.

Some gardeners follow the rule of pruning off one-third of the growth in the fall and half in the spring. Others prefer to prune their roses to waist high in the fall and knee high in the spring. No matter your approach, always cut stems at a 45-degree angle just above a strong outward-facing bud. This encourages the plant to grow outward rather than inward, maintaining a full, vase-like shape.

Not all roses are created equal; so let us take a closer look at how to prune other types.

Standard or Tree Roses: These are generally hybrid tea, grandiflora, or floribunda roses “grafted” onto a tall trunk. Prune these similarly to hybrid teas, cutting the branches back to within 12 inches of the top bud union. This encourages compact, rounded, and vigorous growth. Remove any shoots from the trunk and below the “graft” unions.

Miniature Roses: These tiny beauties grow just 1-2 feet tall and have equally small blooms and foliage. They do not need special pruning, just remove any dead growth and give them a light shearing with hedge clippers to keep their shape.

Polyantha Roses: Known for their clusters of small flowers, polyantha roses have small leaves and can be lightly sheared and shaped just like a small shrub.

Shrub Roses: Bushy types like Knockouts, Drifts, and David Austins can also be lightly sheared and shaped with hedge clippers to maintain their natural form.

Ramblers: Old-fashioned rambler roses, like “Peggy Martin” and Lady Banks, produce long, pliable canes that can grow up to 15 feet in a season. Since they bloom on old wood, they should not be pruned in the fall. Simply remove any dead canes and support or tie the new long canes that will produce next year’s blooms.

Large-Flowering Climbers: These repeat blooming roses have bigger flowers, often produced on old and new wood. After removing dead or diseased canes, shorten the side shoots to 3-6 inches to maintain shape without sacrificing blooms.

Antique Roses: Heirloom roses that bloom repeatedly, like teas, Chinas, and polyanthas, need only a light shearing in the fall to encourage bushy growth with plenty of blooms. If your old garden roses bloom only in the spring, they should have been pruned right after their bloom cycle and not at all in the fall. Fall pruning once-blooming roses eliminates next spring’s bloom.

Greg Grant, Ph.D., is the Smith County horticulturist and Master Gardener coordinator for the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service in Tyler. He is the author of Texas Fruit and Vegetable Gardening, Texas Home Landscaping, Heirloom Gardening in the South, and The Rose Rustlers. You can read his “Greg’s Ramblings” blog at arborgate.com, read his “In Greg’s Garden” in each issue of Texas Gardener magazine (texasgardener.com), or follow him on Facebook at “Greg Grant Gardens” or “Pines, Pawpaws, and Pocket Prairies.” More science-based lawn and gardening information from the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service can be found at aggieturf.tamu.edu and aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu.