Hi, this is Yolanda Vanveen and in this segment, we're going to talk about how to prune roses. Now, roses are one of my favorite plants in my garden. I have some in containers, I have some in the flower beds, and they bloom all summer long and I just love 'em! They're so beautiful! And a trick that I've found with them is half way through the summer time, when they're just starting to look a little tacky 'cause a lot of the blooms have spent away, just cut them out, and as long as you don't cut more than one-third of the plant, that's only one-third at time...a lot of times it'll just grow back and you'll get lots more blooms in the fall. Now, it's December in the Northwest and my roses are still green. We haven't had a heavy freeze. And they're starting to die back, and I've already pruned it a bit, but I think I'm going to prune it a little bit more. When pruning your roses, make sure not to cut more than one-third of your plant down, and don't cut all the way to the wood. Make sure there's another branch that's meeting this point where you're cutting and that it'll fill in again, 'cause if you cut down too far, a lot of times, it'll look kind of strangle-y and it won't do well next year, whereas if you just trim it down a bit, and you want it to be very, very symmetrical and a big circle next year. And I have a tendency to cut too much. In thee end, I found that you don't have to have special tools. If you have a smaller rose, scissors are fine. If you have a larger rose, those clippers work much better. And you can put bleach water on 'em and sterilize 'em 'cause you don't want to spread disease. But in my garden, it's survival of the fittest, and so I prune my roses when I get a chance, year round, whenever they look tacky, I just prune 'em back and I try not to cut the blooms out if they're rit and ready to bud up, but any time of the year, you can prune 'em back and they'll do well in the ground, or in a container and you can prune 'em anytime you get the chance.
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