Pruning

Roses bring a quiet happiness to a garden. Their beauty feels effortless once they are settled, and even a new gardener can grow them with success. With sunlight, sound soil, and a little seasonal care, roses will flower generously and become dependable companions through the year.

Once-flowering roses carry an air of tradition, a reminder of old gardens where their brief but magnificent display was the highlight of summer. They bloom on wood made the year before, so pruning them is a matter of patience and respect for their natural rhythm.

Pruning your roses is more than just tidying up the garden, it’s a chance to shape them into beautiful forms and encourage blooms from top to bottom. With the right approach, pruning helps your roses to not only stay healthy but also bloom in stunning, well-balanced shapes.

Pruning is arguably the most important job you can do for your roses. It gives your rose shape, structure and encourages new blooms for the season ahead.

Standard roses bring a touch of elegance to any garden, their blooms held aloft like a bouquet upon a slender stem. Pruning them correctly helps maintain this graceful shape, encourages healthy growth, and ensures an abundance of flowers year after year.

As April arrives and your garden begins to stir, you might find yourself wondering, Is it too late to prune my roses? Maybe winter slipped by and you didn’t get to it, or perhaps you're simply not sure when the right time is. If you're looking for a bit of reassurance, you're not alone.

The instructions in this article cover the pruning of English Shrub Roses, as well as other repeat flowering shrub roses.

It’s time to prepare your roses for the year ahead and give them a prune. Ideally, complete this task while the roses are still dormant, usually between January and February. If your roses have leafed and you still have not pruned it is still better to prune, but this may push back the flowering period until later in the season.