Pruning Hard or Light

What are peoples thoughts on pruning...I heard it said that the harder you prune will produce larger blooms but fewer and the lighter you prune will produce smaller blooms but many more.

My question is... is this true?

Paul I've heard the same. I also think there was a greater tendency to prune HT's very hard in the past but these days less severe. I tend to leave about one third when I do mine but have found some respond better to a harder prune than others. I know I tend to start each bush with an eye for shape etc and a light hand but then I get caught up in it and go for broke - bit like cutting hair, I find, just a little becomes 'to heck with it' and off it comes.

Thats the same here Siky too , have to restrain myself from not pruning too hard , i have heard that if you prune hard you get longer spindly canes but i don't know that i've noticed that happening ..

silkyfizz wrote:Paul I've heard the same. I also think there was a greater tendency to prune HT's very hard in the past but these days less severe. I tend to leave about one third when I do mine but have found some respond better to a harder prune than others. I know I tend to start each bush with an eye for shape etc and a light hand but then I get caught up in it and go for broke - bit like cutting hair, I find, just a little becomes 'to heck with it' and off it comes.

when it came to my first attempt at pruning..I was told to prune very hard...the problems I faced silky were the same as yours...some responded really well...while others really struggled and still haven't come back to there former glory.

For what it is worth IMO, I prune to the bush. I have 'Camp David, huge, so it gets pruned hard(when it does get pruned), I have 'Joy of Health' spindly little thing(rootstock issue I believe), pruned gently, 'Iceberg', just pruned anyway as it will shoot from any part of the bush. By pruning hard with a lot of roses you are more likely to obtain basal shoots, which can be beneficial if you want a plant that is "bushy" or you need some more canes to replace old one's.
Paul most of yours are HT's or Floribundas I guess, they require different pruning to say a "once flowerer/spring". To give another example we have an own root 'Royal Highness" a monster, it get hard pruned to reduce it's height.

There are many theories on rose pruning. First you have to look at type (HT, Florib, OGR and species) all are pruned slightly different . This pruning hard probably had its origins in Nth America and Europe where winter chill is so severe , that rose wood it killed almost down to the crown.

Here in Oz we are far from having conditions like that, so our treatment of roses tend to differ.

With HT's/ Flori I tend to remove around 50% of the growth produced in that growing season,but if a plant is having trouble putting out new wood , the pruning is a lot lighter. Pruning a sick plant to hard reduces its ability to rejuvenate.

OGR just need dead wood taken out and a light tidy up if getting to big, these roses flower on older wood comming from laterals.

Species are similar to OGR in a lot of ways and are treated similar.

warren

I have a more technical approach to pruning. I prune tha plant and then have Lee have a look to see if I have done it correctly and then I do it again.

I did the Comm de Larbathe circle (30 or so roses) up the back in late August. I did it again last weekend!

Good thing about Queensland (one of many) is you can prune whenever you like and it does not make too much difference. If you have something comming up you can prune to suit that date so the double prune has not hurt them at all.

With Teas you have to be carefull as some do not like heavy prunning and will simply fret and die if you do it.

I pruned hard this season and my roses have never been so healthy and loaded with buds