When Is It Too Late to Prune Roses? How to Do It the Right Way

Pruning is an essential aspect of caring for roses. Unlike lower-maintenance shrubs such as hydrangea and forsythia, roses benefit from regular pruning to help keep them tidy and disease-free and encourage prolific blooms. 

If you’re growing roses for the first time, you’ve likely heard that pruning is essential to their care and may be worried that you’ve missed the opportune pruning window. Luckily, despite their reputation for being high-maintenance, roses are pretty forgiving plants. That said, there are a few general rules to follow when it comes to pruning to keep your roses happy and healthy.

Here’s what you need to know about pruning roses, including how to prune and when it’s too late.

Why Pruning Roses Is Important

Regularly pruning roses is about more than just aesthetics. While it’s true that a properly pruned plant will produce more blooms and have a more compact and attractive appearance, pruning also helps keep the plant healthy by increasing airflow and removing dead, weak, and diseased canes. 

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When Is It Too Late to Prune Roses?

Generally, it is too late to prune roses once they have gone dormant—that is, in the fall and winter months. This is because pruning signals to the plant that it’s time to put out new growth. As a result, pruning too early risks exposing the plant’s delicate blooms to cold snaps, while pruning too late may result in growth that is not hardened off on time for the plant’s dormant period (it’s unlikely to survive the cold winter). 

With thousands of species of roses, the best time to prune roses varies depending on the type and your growing zone. For most species, the ideal time to prune is at the end of the dormant period, anywhere from the late winter (January and March) to the late spring (May and June), depending on your climate. Always check the growing guidelines for your specific variety before pruning.

Luckily, most rose plants are forgiving enough to bounce back from a bad prune, so don’t worry if you’ve pruned your plant too early or too late. You may experience one lousy growing season, but the plant should recover by the following year.  

How to Prune Roses

The ideal time to prune roses depends on the type of rose you have and how often it blooms. For example, some rose species flower only once a season, while others bloom repeatedly throughout the spring and summer.

When pruning roses, always use clean, sharp pruning shears and make cuts at a 45-degree angle to prevent water from building up on the stem. Remove dead and diseased canes, weak growth, suckers, and branches that cross one another. Cutting just above a bud or node will ensure that new growth covers the cut stem for a more aesthetic look.

Once-Flowering Roses

Once-flowering roses bloom on old growth and should be pruned immediately after blooming in the mid-to-late summer. This encourages strong new growth the following spring and prevents the plant from looking leggy and gangly. These roses can be pruned hard but never remove more than one half to one third of the overall growth. Revisit the plant in the early spring to clean it up and remove dead canes.

This group of roses includes many old-fashioned varieties such as alba, gallica, damask, and rambling. Some once-flowering species don’t tolerate pruning as well as others, so ensure you research the needs of your specific species before pruning. 

Repeat Bloomers

Repeat bloomers flower more than once per growing season and should be pruned accordingly. Once the last frost has passed, they should be pruned in late winter to early spring. Then, they can be pruned between each flush of blooms to maintain their shape and control new growth. Avoid doing hard prunes during the flowering season unless you are concerned about disease. Stop pruning in the late summer so the last flush of growth can harden off before the plant’s dormant period.

Climbing Roses

Unlike their shrubby counterparts, climbing roses like to be mostly left alone. Avoid pruning them entirely for the first few years after planting, then limit it to light cleaning up and shaping once established.