Types of Roses: How the Group Decides the Pruning

Why the group matters more than the label

Roses are sorted into groups by growth habit and, crucially, by where they carry their flowers. A rose that flowers on wood made this year is pruned in late winter without losing anything. A rose that flowers on wood made last year loses its entire display if you do the same to it. That single distinction explains most pruning failures.

So the useful question about any rose in the garden is not what it is called but which group it belongs to. You can work it out by watching for one season: note whether it flowers once or repeatedly, whether the blooms come singly or in sprays, and whether the flowers appear on this year's shoots or on last year's canes.

Hybrid teas and floribundas

Hybrid teas carry one large, high centered flower per stem on an upright bush, which is why they dominate cut flower growing. They flower on the current season's growth and respond well to being cut back hard: the harder you prune, the fewer and larger the blooms. They are also the group that most rewards disbudding, where you remove the small side buds around the main one to put everything into a single flower.

Floribundas carry their flowers in sprays rather than singly, so they give more color over a longer period but no individual show blooms. They also flower on this year's growth and take a moderate prune in late winter. The difference at deadheading is important: on a floribunda you take the whole spent truss down to a strong leaf, rather than picking off individual dead flowers, which keeps the sprays coming evenly.

Shrub roses

Shrub roses is a broad group covering old garden roses, species roses and the modern shrubs bred to combine repeat flowering with a relaxed, informal shape. What they share is that they build a permanent woody framework and resent being cut back hard. Prune one like a hybrid tea and you get a season of leafy recovery and very few flowers.

The rule for shrubs is to take no more than about a third of the growth in any year, and to renew by removing one or two of the oldest canes at the base rather than shortening everything. Some shrubs repeat and some flower once; the once flowering ones are pruned after their flush, like ramblers, while the repeaters are pruned lightly in late winter.

1. Work out whether yours repeats Watch through one summer. A shrub that flowers only in early summer is pruned after flowering; one that keeps producing is pruned lightly in late winter.
2. Remove the three D's first Dead, damaged and diseased wood comes out on every shrub every year. On many, that plus a light tidy is the whole job.
3. Renew one old cane a year Cut one of the oldest, grayest canes right down to the base annually. New canes come from the crown to replace it and the plant never gets woody in the middle.
4. Shorten side shoots, not the framework Where you need to reduce size, take the side shoots back by a third rather than cutting into the main stems.
5. Leave hips on if the plant sets them Many shrubs and species roses carry good hips. Stopping deadheading in autumn gives you the fruit and helps the plant harden off.

Ground cover roses behave like low shrubs: light annual tidying, occasional removal of an old cane, and no hard cutting back. Treated as bedding roses they thin out and stop covering the ground.

Climbers and ramblers: the distinction that matters most

A climber has a permanent framework of stiff main stems and flowers on short side shoots produced from that framework each year. It usually repeats through the season, and the blooms are larger and fewer. You keep the framework indefinitely and shorten the side shoots to two or three buds each late winter.

A rambler is much more vigorous, flexible stemmed, and produces one enormous flush of small flowers in early summer on wood grown the previous year. Because next year's flowers are on this year's new canes, you prune it straight after flowering by removing a proportion of the oldest canes at the base and tying in the new ones. Cutting a rambler in late winter removes exactly the wood you needed.

Train the main stems of a climber as near horizontal as the support allows. Buds break along a horizontal stem and only at the tip of a vertical one, which is the real reason climbers go bare at the base.

Working out what you have

If a rose came without a label, one season of observation will place it. Record four things: how many flushes it produced, whether the flowers came singly or in sprays, roughly how tall and how flexible the stems are, and whether this year's flowers appeared on new green shoots or on last year's woody canes. Those four answers narrow it to one group.

Until you know, prune conservatively. Take out the dead, damaged and diseased wood, do nothing else that year, and watch. A year of restraint costs you nothing, whereas one wrong hard prune on a rambler or an old shrub costs a whole season of flowers.

Write the answer on a label and tie it to the plant. Working the group out is the hard part; remembering it three winters later is the part people underestimate.