It's time to prune! How to prune your roses & keep them healthy...

We've had some really beautiful spring days…it's the perfect time to prune your roses!

A lot of people can get overexcited and prune their roses too early, but it's really important to wait until the really cold weather has gone. Mid February, early March or even just into April is the perfect time to get pruning them. 

My roses were planted last year so they're not going to have a really hard prune. We don't want to take them too low, only about a third off to encourage the growth. It's important that you don't have criss-crosses going on, and to remove any damaged leaves or any areas with black spot, as if left they will contaminate the new buds, new leaves and new growth coming through. 

Miles, our expert gardener from the wonderful Chantry Green is back here with us! He is going to give us a few pointers on the perfect way to prune your roses.

The roses we are talking about today were planted about 12 months ago. They're doing very well but we just want to make sure that we give them a light prune to encourage them to grow this year and make sure we get a good structure for the years to come.

The most important thing to start off with first, is to remove any wood that is dead, damaged or diseased (the three D’s). There shouldn't be too much if you only have a young plant, but take a good look and if you spot any little broken bits, take them out.

Next up, we want to make sure that we don't have too many thorny branches crossing. They can rub together and can damage each other. This can result in infection, with all sorts of viruses or diseases affecting the plant.

You almost want to create a sort of open goblet shape which allows more light into the center of the plant. Therefore also ensuring better air circulation. Make sure you have nice sharp secateurs for this job! There's nothing worse than having a bad cut which can again affect the plant as it grows. 

We now reduce it all back by about a third or so. You want to cut down to a bud, and ideally you want those facing outwards. You don't really want any growth going back into the plant again, therefore keeping an open framework. 

Pruning of this kind should be all it needs for its first year. Watch and see how it goes! They can always be taken back a little bit further next year if you want.

All of my roses are the English 'David Austin’ roses. They are a really brilliant company to deal with. I sent them measurements of my flower beds, let them know the types of roses that I would like. I mentioned I would like them to be particularly fragrant, and they did a planting scheme for me!

They emailed it through with their suggestions and it was brilliant and really great service. They were all bare root roses that I ordered a year ago, and Miles helped me plant.

Doing this first prune has been very exciting! They actually flowered so brilliantly last summer. I was pleasantly surprised with how well they did considering they were only recently planted. There were so many flowers! I did have to do a lot of watering and deadheading, but there was such an abundance from the two beds. I was totally and utterly thrilled!

Love,