How to Prune Dormant Roses

Pruning roses while they're dormant gets them ready for spring.

Most roses need pruning to produce better blooms, allow for new growth and to keep the plants healthy from year to year. All types of roses need pruning while they're dormant except for old-fashioned roses, shrub roses and climbing roses. They need to be pruned after they finish flowering since they bloom on old wood and not new wood. Hybrid teas, floribunda, miniature and bush roses all need dormant pruning in the early spring or late winter. Does this Spark an idea?

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Pruning shears
Loppers

Instructions

- 1
  
  Remove all the dead, damaged and diseased wood from the roses at the base of the bush.
- 2
  
  Cut off any suckers that are growing up from beneath the rose bush at the soil line.
- 3
  
  Cut the rose bush to a uniform height, about 12 to 24 inches above the soil line, with the pruning shears and the loppers. Make each cut at a 45-degree angle right above an outward-facing bud to encourage wider growth.
- 4
  
  Remove every thin spindly piece of wood that is less than 1 inch in diameter. Cut the wood off at the base of the bush.