Roses need to be pruned once a year in winter and January is one of the best months to do this task.
With this in mind, the gardening experts at David Austin Roses have shared their advice for pruning roses in January.
Roses are robust, especially English varieties, so they will likely cope quite well with the UK’s temperamental winter weather.
Your roses will likely be dormant in the winter months which means there’s not much you can do to them other than pruning.
With an arctic blast about to hit the UK, many gardeners may be concerned about their roses, however, when they’re in dormancy, they are hibernating which means they can cope fine with ice, snow and more.
The gardening experts “recommend pruning during January and February” to prepare them for the rest of the year.
Gardeners only have to prune their roses once in either January or February. For anyone who forgets to prune their roses in January or February, they can chop them in March instead.
Pruning roses for the first time can feel daunting, especially if you’re not a seasoned pruner.
However, the marketing team at Peter Beales assured that gardeners won’t kill them, even if they accidentally butcher them.
The experts said: “Roses are tough and can take a lot more abuse than people give them credit for.”
Roses that are “rough pruned” using hedge trimmers rather than secateurs, for example, will still produce an “abundance of blooms” and will grow just as successfully as roses that are carefully pruned.
While the majority of roses need to be pruned in winter, tall hybrid tea roses may need to be slightly trimmed in the autumn to protect them from strong winds.
However, these varieties should not be hard-pruned in autumn as this could damage them in the winter.
How to prune roses in winter:
1. Cut them back as much as you need, making sure to shape them.
2. Next, remove any dead, dying, diseased or damaged stems.
3. If there’s any foliage left over, remove it and dispose of it.
