The Dreaded "P" Word!

And that word is;

Pruning!

A word that usually sends any rose gardener running for the smelling salts, oxygen and their favorite copy of "The Over Bloated, Incredibly Complicated Book of Rose Care".  In that substantial tome they will find strict rules of rose pruning etiquette that must be followed at all costs or else their roses will die a severe and painful death and life will cease to exist as we know it.  And you thought global warming was a threat!

Hogwash to all of that I say!  As we talked about in the introduction of this blog, a Garden Rose is nothing more than a shrub with flowers on it.  That's it, over and out, thank you very much.  So treat them as such and that applies to pruning.

Understand this.  The current method of severe pruning has one purpose in mind.  To produce long stem cut flowers for the florist industry, for exhibiting or bringing into your house.  And it works great - for that purpose.  Many dedicated and talented Rose Folks have raised this way of growing roses to an art form all its own.

But is it the best way to prune if you want a nice full bush, producing lots of flowers and blends in with all your other plants in the garden?  In my opinion, no.

So in between the rose history parts of this blog we are now going to start talking about how to take care of Garden Roses.  And since a picture is worth a thousand words, here is a video from our Roses Are Plants Too series over on You Tube that gives you a short introduction to pruning.  More details to follow in future posts so stay tuned for a little pruning lesson over the next month.

By the way.  The Bloated Book of Rose Care makes great compost.  After all it's full of......