Make a Date With Your Roses

Have you pruned your Hybrid Tea Roses lately? Pruning your roses back by 80% while they are dormant is the optimal time. Not only will it produce tidier plants, but will stimulate new, stronger, better-flowering growth and eliminate the nasty old stuff that harbors pests and diseases.

DK Landscaping provides you a step-by-step guide to getting the best blooms out of these traditionally beloved plants:

1. Wait until your roses are dormant. If the climate where you live is moderate, roses may never go into full dormancy or lose their leaves completely.

Hybrid Tea Roses

3. Remove all deadwood by cutting out all unhealthy canes. This means dead, diseased or damaged growth. Roses are sensitive to winter frost and the rest of the year are attacked by dozens of fungi, insects, molds, and bacteria.

Remove Deadwood

3. Prune to ensure that the center of the bush is open for maximum air circulation. That is, cut out stems that fill up and cross through the center. Remove any branches that are less than the thickness of a pencil, and remove any branches that cross or rub together. Train the rose to grow outwards.

Create Air Space to Prevent Disease

4. Make all cuts above a leaf bud that points towards the outside of the plant. Make all cuts clean – not jagged cuts, as this will allow insects and disease into the plant and open it up to infection. Always prune to a healthy bud. Make sure your cut is at a 45 degree angle going away from the bud.

Cut to a Leaf Bud

5. To ensure your plants remain healthy, we recommend painting all cuts with a sealing compound because the plant is not actively growing and can’t defend itself as well against diseases and pests.

Sealing Compound

6. Your Hybrid Tea Roses should look like this after it has been pruned (v shaped).

Hybrid Tea Rose Before and After Picture

For the best results, DK Landscaping recommends pruning your roses before Valentine’s Day! So put on a long-sleeved shirt and gloves and grab some sharp pruning shears and make a date with your rose or give DK Landscaping a call at (707) 280-3632 to get your hybrid tea roses bearing the champion flowers that it was meant to be by spring!

Tagged: branches, bud, damaged, deadwood, diseased, DK Landscaping, Hybrid Tea Roses, Northern California, plants, pruning roses, Sonoma County, stems, step by step guide, valentine's day