How to Cut Back Roses for Winter

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Rose gardening has been a pastime for centuries. Keeping the bushes trimmed back will encourage them to give their best and biggest blooms each year.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

Rose bushes
Rake
Gloves
Sharp rose snips
Long handled pruning snips
Powered blower
Cart or wheelbarrel
Mulch

Step1

Clean around your bushes. Each fall after the first frost rake all the grass and leaves away from around your roses. Inspect their bases for sucker plants that need removal.

Step2

Cut the roses back. After the rose has gone into its winter hibernation and before new spring growth has appeared cut the rose back to 3 feet up from the soil. This gives the roses a new start for the next season.

Step3

Clean up for the new year to follow. Remove all the rose leaves on the bushes and clean the rose bed of any leaves or cutting. It is important not to leave prunings in your rose bed to protect against disease and rot. If you have many rose bushes, a powered blower is helpful to blow old leaves in the soil from your rose bed out to the grass. Your lawn mower will pick up the leaves in the grass. If you only have a few rose bushes, your hand or a small rake can gather the leaves from the rose bed.

Step4

Give your roses a warm blanket of mulch to protect them from cold, dry conditions and a hard freeze.

Tips & Warnings

Annual trimming helps keep the rose's integrity.

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Comments

xtraordinary said

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on 6/23/2008 Thank you for the tips! I live in a rental with very mature landscaping, including lots of rosebushes, so I can't wait to try this out in the fall.