How to Dead Head a Rose Bush

Dead heading your rose bush will provide ample blossoms all summer long.

Dead heading a rose bush is the process of removing the dead flowers in order to get the rose bush to produce more blooms. If you remove the bloom from the rose bush before it is able to form fruit (rose hips), the plant will generate more flowers in an effort to reproduce. It is a way of "tricking" the rose bush into making more blossoms. Cut off the old bloom, and within four to ten weeks, there will be new flowers.

Things You'll Need

• Hand pruners
• White glue

Instructions

1. Cut the cane below each spent bloom at about one-fourth inch above the first leaf cluster of five leaflets, using hand pruners. Cut at a 45-degree angle with the slant going away from the bush.

2. Remove canes that are withered, dark brown or black. These may be dead, diseased or dying canes.

3. Cut away all canes that are smaller than a pencil in diameter (just under one-fourth inch).

4. Seal the ends of the cuts with white glue to prevent cane borers from entering the plant.

5. Remove sucker growth. Dig down to the root of the plant and tear the sucker off at its origin.

Tips & Warnings

• Dead head your rose bushes in the late spring and continue throughout the summer. A good measure to go by is to begin dead heading when forsythia bloom. Dead head throughout the season at least weekly.

• Use only clean and sharp hand pruners.

• Never break the cane by hand; it may damage the plant.

• Do not cut off dead blooms after the first of October; the plant needs to prepare for winter.

• Do not cut suckers; it encourages re-growth. Tear them off at their source.

• If the rose bush is small or weak, do not cut off too much cane.

References

• Univeristy of Illinois Extension: Our Rose Garden: Dead Heading
• Roses: Deadheading and Summer or Fall Pruning of Roses
• Rose Care Tips: How To Deadhead Roses