Pruning roses

[CrabbyApple]

It's still very cold here with temps dropping down into the minuses frequently yet my roses are already putting out new leaves and stems. I want to prune the bush back as it's grown wild and unkempt over the summer but is it too early? If I prune it now will the cold hurt the new delicate shoots?

I don't know the variety of the rose but it's extremely hardly in general. It was still blooming strongly right through the snow we had just after Christmas and is putting up a lot of new buds already.

[Martin H]

Personally I would prune back lightly just now to stop the bush being battered too much by the weather and then give it a harder prune back to fresh buds at the end of winter.

[Gema13]

There's no reason to prune twice. Do it now, but really you should have pruned around Oct/Nov. Pruning twice or in summer can stress, stunt, cause infection in the plant. Just my way of doing it.

[bend1pa]

Roses should be completely dormant at this time. All my roses are and I'm in the SE.

The best time to prune roses is late Feb - mid March, depending on weather. Do it while there is no frost forecast. If you prune now we could still get severe weather in Feb which could kill new shoots and cause die-back. So I'd leave the pruning until then.

[CrabbyApple]

Okay, thanks for all the info! I think I'm going to just keep an eye on it over the next couple of weeks and see what it does.

This is a total newbie question but roses are supposed to lose their leaves when they go dormant right? Mine is still covered in dark green leaves and the stems from last year's growth are still nice and green, and somewhat flexible.

Actually it looks healthier now than it did during the summer. Could my rose just prefer a colder climate? It's currently burried under four inches of snow and doesn't seem to have a care in the world.

[bend1pa]

Roses usually lose their leaves or most of them over winter. But we've had a fairly mild November and December when it only turned cold for a week or so from Boxing Day, after which it turned mild again. And we've had another cold snap the last 10 days. So overall it hasn't really been that cold, so the leaves have stayed on. When you come to prune, pull the old ones off first (pulling the leaf stalk downwards), ensuring you don't leave any leaves on the ground as they probably contain black spot fungal spores which will infect the new leaves.