The Best Way To Prune Rose Bushes For Maximum, Healthy Blooms

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Yearly gardening tasks help you stay in touch with the rhythm of the seasons while caring for your plants, and pruning your rose bushes is one task you won't want to skip. There are many types of roses that thrive in USDA Hardiness Zones 5 through 11, from small rose plants that are happy to grow in containers to species you can grow as a thick shrub or train to climb structures. But most of them share a common need for pruning to keep them healthy and ensure a profusion of blooms throughout the flowering season. The best way to prune roses is to trim the stems about 1/4 inch above outward-facing buds with clean, sharp shears.

Before you attempt rose pruning, make sure it's the time of year when it will help and not hurt these lovely perennials. Put the clippers away if summer has just ended; this is the time after roses bloom when the plant needs to start fortifying itself before winter. Use our tips for pruning the plant when it's the end of winter or start of spring instead, before the growing season gets underway. Seeing a few buds forming is a good sign that it's time to start pruning — and a guide for where to cut. When roses are actively growing, you can trim off dead flowers, but don't cut them again when the colder months approach, as the stems can be nesting places for solitary bees and the plant will develop rose hips.

If the time is right, gather up the supplies needed for the task: Gloves and pruning shears are a must, and it's also wise to have a first aid kit on hand in case the rose thorns damage exposed skin. Depending on the type of roses you have and where they're planted, you might also add in loppers, which have longer handles that make slicing through the thick wood of the plant easier. Shears with a bypass blade, like Fiskars Bypass Pruning Shears, 5/8-Inch Cut Capacity Garden Clippers, may be more gentle on the roses. Whichever you choose, make sure they fit comfortably in your hand. It's also important to clean and disinfect your pruning tools to avoid spreading any plant diseases.

Start the pruning process by identifying and trimming the stems that are dead or damaged, which will be darker in color than the healthy green, red, or orange stems and sometimes appear cracked or peeling. You can remove these stems entirely if the whole length of the stem is dying, or cut them down to the healthy part. On stems that are entirely healthy, where you just want to encourage more growth, prune about 1/4 inch above places where a bud is visibly developing. Whatever you do, don't cut below an emerging bud: That's one gardening mistake to avoid so you get more blooms. 

Beyond the standard tips on how to prune your roses, there are some nuances to consider based on the type of rose gracing your yard or garden. Modern ever-blooming roses need the most aggressive pruning, so if you're growing floribundas or hybrid tea roses, for example, don't be shy about removing up to two-thirds of the rose bush's height. This allows new growth, on which the best flowers form, to come in strong. A typical pruning routine for these types of roses could involve cutting all but three to five evenly-spaced canes and trimming those new canes above their buds.

For roses with a shrubby growing habit, or varieties known as "once-blooming," it's better to take a minimal approach. Shrub roses can even be left alone for a few years before you start pruning them to keep them in shape. When the time comes, many gardeners work by removing the oldest canes while keeping the younger ones intact. The "once blooming" types like damask rose (Rosa x damascena) can produce flowers on old wood, so oftentimes they just need any stray dead or damaged stems removed and a quick prune after they flower.