Caring for roses during Winter

While roses bloom during the warmer months, when the weather cools and the temperature of the soil drops, they become dormant, an ideal time to being garden maintenance.

“The whole idea behind pruning is to regenerate the plant," says Kim Syrus, one of South Australia's foremost roses experts. "Pruning adds vigour to the plant, helps prevent disease, and improves the quality of the blooms."

How to care for roses during winter

A rose's roots will naturally send energy to every growing bud. The more buds they are feeding, the less energy each bud receives. By carefully trimming your rose in winter, you can help it grow in the desired shape (or in the case of climbing roses, in the desired direction).

Maintaining roses through pruning also allows us to direct the energy of the roots to a smaller number of stems and buds, which ensures healthy stems and vibrant, vigorous flowers.

"Leaving a rose unpruned tends to make it peter out in terms of the quality of its blooms, and leaves it a little more prone to disease," says Kim.

Finding the right balance when pruning roses

He recommends pruning roses not too lightly - which tends to cause the plant to produce lots of smaller flowers - and not pruning too heavily, which can cause coarse and somewhat brittle growth.

"A good rule of thumb is to reduce the rose bush by half its height and cut half its canes away," he says. "Cut out the old wood first and leave the fresher stuff if possible."

Kim says that the location and angle of the cut is less important than people are led to believe and that most roses will re-shoot and produce flowers even from raggedly cut stems.

"We need to demystify roses and make people recognise how hardy they are," he says. "It's important to prune roses at the right time for best effect, but there's no need to get too scientific about it."

Best times to prune roses

It's best to wait as long as possible to prune your roses, to ensure they have reached dormancy. Kim suggests any time from late June to mid-August is best in temperate areas. People in high-frost zones are better off waiting longer, since frosts occurring in spring can burn off new growth.

Once the weather and the soil warm up, the roots kick back into gear, the starch in the dormant stems turns into sugar, and the buds shoot. Around six or seven weeks later, you will have magnificent blooming roses.

Contact a gardener in your area to discuss ways to care for your roses: