The question of when to cut which rose and how cannot be answered in one sentence. Most roses should be trimmed after flowering to prevent exposure to germs. Also, roses are usually pruned back in early spring; unless they are once flowering varieties.
Roses can be cut for the vase at any time
Only cut once-blooming roses after they have bloomed
When pruning roses, it is important to distinguish between types that bloom once and those that bloom repeatedly. Shrub and climbing roses that bloom once only produce their flowers on two-year-old shoots, which is why a different pruning time applies to roses in this category than to modern roses that usually bloom more often. If you prune once-blooming types too hard in spring, a large part of the valuable blossom wood would be lost. For this reason, they are only cut in the summer immediately after flowering. Shorten the shoots only slightly and also remove some wood from the middle of the rose, i. H. You thin them out. In this way, the young shoots are spared and the plant also has time to develop further shoots, which in turn will flower vigorously the following year.
Cut back blooming roses in spring
Most commercially available modern rose varieties are repeat flowering; This means that they flower on the one-year-old shoots and can therefore be pruned in spring without any worries. When cutting, always watch out for the eyes (buds) and always cut just above them, keeping the cut at a slight angle.
Trim roses in summer
The summer pruning of rose varieties that bloom more often is not a one-off action like the rejuvenating pruning in spring. Instead, this is done continuously as regular removal of faded flowers. Types that bloom in clusters, such as bed or shrub roses, cut out just below a faded umbel. For Hybrid Tea roses, which often produce only one flower per stem, ideally look for the spot above the first fully developed leaflet. At this point sits the first strong bud for new growth.
tips
Some shoot and leaf diseases can be spread from one plant to another using infected pruning tools such as pruning shears. In order to minimize the risk of such transmission and thus the contamination of healthy roses, it can help to disinfect all pruning tools with denatured alcohol several times a year.