Pruning roses is something I get asked about a lot. Here I'll try to walk through pruning an old rose bush that is horribly overgrown, as well as pruning back a hybrid tea rose that took a beating over the winter.
I've started with a hybrid tea rose which had a lot of die-back over the winter. I prune it back hard. This can be a bit scary if you haven't done it before.
Then I'll show you how I spent my birthday this year, and walk through, step-by-step, the pruning of an old rose. One on the lovely things about old roses is that they do not require annual pruning like hybrid teas. But sometimes they get neglected and overgrown, and what once was a thing a beauty becomes unapproachable.
The pictures aren't pretty — unless you really love roses — but I hope they'll be informative. This is the kind of serious pruning I hope most of you never have to tackle. But if you do, make sure your clippers are sharp and you wear gloves.
