Roses are adored by many for their glorious flower heads, but they will struggle to bloom without proper pruning.
If left, climbing roses can become a tangled mess of branches with very few flowers.
It is worth remembering not to be scared to cut back roses, they are tough and thrive on a decisive approach.
Taking to his TikTok account @_orpheus_, professional gardener Orpheus Alexander has shared a video on how to prune a climbing rose in one minute.
Before you start to prune, clean your blades with disinfectant to avoid inadvertently transferring disease.
The expert noted how the rose he was pruning has two main horizontal branches which he leaves alone and then prunes off everything else.
Orpheus said: “Every single branch that’s coming off it is going to get cut back to about two inches or so, making sure I’m cutting to a growth point.
“Pruning it like this will mean you get so many flowers in summertime.”
The expert added that you want to take off any stem that is growing straight up. Anything that’s dead, diseased or dying has to go.
Essentially, gardeners just want to leave behind the main stem of the rose and get rid of anything growing off of it.
Orpheus explained that if you’re pruning a rose in this way, “you don’t need to hold back”. He insists that gardeners just “go for it” as it’ll be worth it come summer.
Pruning the plant like this means that all the energy will go into producing flowers and “now is the time to do it.”
After pruning your climbing rose, feed it with a specialist rose product. Climbing roses often need a larger dose of feed than shrub roses, so check the packet instructions.
Mix the rose feed into the soil surrounding your rose, but avoid the product coming into contact with the main stems.
Finish by mulching your roses with compost or well-rotted manure, which will add further nutrients, suppress weeds and disease, and help keep in moisture.
Apply it around two to three inches thick, covering the area beneath the main rose canopy.
