How to correctly prune your rose bushes

Photography by Dawn Gagnon

Roses are a beautiful addition to any garden but they do require some maintenance to keep them looking beautiful. Proper pruning and dead heading your roses is one part of the maintenance that must be done every season.

1. Prune your rose in early spring and once all danger of frost has past.

2. Make sure you have clean, sharp by-pass pruners and thick gloves. Some roses like the Joseph Coat are extremely thorny and can really cause a lot of damage to your hands and arms.

3. During the growing season, prune roses by looking for the first set of five leaves where you'll see a leaf bud. Prune just above this bud at a 45 degree angle that will assure the new growth will grow outward from the plant and not inward. This can be done as you dead head your roses.

4. Remove all dead and dying wood and any spindly canes that are less than the diameter of a pencil. Also look for sucker growth. These are canes that shoot out from the base of your plant under the main bud union. The main bud union is where all the main canes of the rose bush emerge from. Anything growing and shooting out from under this is a sucker and should be removed completely.

5. If you have a problem with cane borers, it is suggested that you can cover fresh pruning cuts with basic white school glue to prevent infestation.

6. Once roses go dormant for the year and have been exposed to several hard frosts, cut the rose down to one third of its original size and only leave three to four healthy canes for best results. Add a thick layer of fresh mulch.

The Knockout rose, a great choice for disease resistance

South Carolina has a long growing season, and Spring starts off with a burst of color in most landscapes. Cherry trees, Bradford Pears, Dogwoods, and Azaleas dominate most gardens in the south in  early Spring. There is one flower that is quite a challenge in most gardens, even in the south, and  that is roses. High temperatures, drought, and  humid nights, often prove to be the enemy when growing roses. Finding one that is a good fit for your yard is important. The Knockout rose may the one of the best to meet this challenge.

Knockout roses can be purchased from a variety of places, your local garden center, and bare root from reputable companies like Jackson and Perkins online. There are single blooming and double blooming varieties that will no doubt reward you with proper care. They typically grow fast, bloom heavy from Spring through late Summer and are disease resistant and pest tolerant. They do get aphids, but if they are healthy, are not affected by them like some more delicate variety of roses may be. Blasting aphids with a strong surge of water usually keeps them in check.

Knockout roses are great in areas where disease is prevalent,  especially to one of the worst culprits, blackspot. While no rose is entirely immune to disease,  however, Knockout roses seem to fair better than most. The key to helping any rose in its resistance to pests and disease is to ensure that they remain strong and healthy.

Knockout roses do well if planted in full sun, in the southern states, it is ok if they have some afternoon relief from the sun. 6 hours of full morning sun is ideal. Water roses on a regular basis, but to avoid disease problems, water by hose early in the day so that roses have time to dry. Roses watered in the evening stay damp overnight and this encourages disease coupled with warm night temperatures.

Knockout roses respond well to some shaping and pruning in the winter, removing dead growth and regularly dead heading spent blossoms will keep Knockouts looking their best. Slow release feeding, organic compost and fish meal worked into the base of the plant will yield beautiful strong plants. Liquid fertilizer that can be dispersed during watering will have promising results and help these fast growing heavy bloomers do their job. If you are planning on any one rose for your garden, Knock out rose will not disappoint you.

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