Our guide to getting brilliant results

It's simple. If you want your roses to be a mass of blooms, year after year, you'll have to prune your bushes.

Almost all roses send up vigorous new shoots from the base each year. After about three years, these shoots have grown old, producing fewer flowers and being easy targets for pests and diseases. By pruning out the oldest branches and cutting the younger ones back to a healthy bud, you make room for fresh new stems.

When to prune

The right time to prune roses is governed by your climate. Pruning stimulates regrowth but frost will destroy soft, new shoots. In frosty areas, don't prune until frosts are finished, which will be just before the new spring growth appears. If you live in a frost-free area, prune in the second or third month of winter.

How to prune

Using very sharp, clean secateurs, cut out all dead, weak or spindly growth. Keep three to seven healthy young stems, each growing upwards and outwards. Cut out all the others completely and then prune back the remaining branches to any height desired. Prune a few millimetres above an outward pointing bud, cutting the stems at a 45 degree angle so they shed water. Don't prune to an inward pointing bud or the plant will become congested in the centre.

Any growths that appear below the graft union near the base of the plant should be removed when they are first seen. This can be done at any time.

Before pruning. This rose has twiggy sticks which will crowd the main canes and reduce flowering.

The same rose after pruning. The main canes have been reduced and the laterals shortened.

Summer pruning
Summer pruning involves more than snipping off faded flowers - do this and all you'll get in autumn are a few short-stemmed blossoms clustered around the tip. It's better to cut 30-40cm off each stem in late summer, even if the stem hasn't flowered and even if it has some flower buds. This encourages a mass of new growth, all bearing long-stemmed roses 6-8 weeks after pruning.

Pruning climbing roses

Climbing roses produce many long canes from their bases and these should be tied to their support horizontally. Flower stems will grow all along the tied-down cane. In autumn, take 25-30cm off each cane. In winter, remove any old woody canes and shorten any new canes that aren't yet long enough to tie down. Also in winter, shorten lateral branches from the tied-down canes that have flowered back to the third set of leaves from their bases. Lateral branches that haven't flowered should be tied down horizontally but not shortened.

Climbers are not pruned for the first 2 or 3 years. Instead, canes are tied horizontally to a support.

Source: Gardening: A Commonsense Guide (Murdoch Books)