How to prune overgrown rose?

Sally 2 · April 2015

Hello,

I'm looking for some advice on how to tackle an old and very overgrown rose that I have recently inherited.

I'm a novice gardener and I don't know what kind of rose it is - I have seen it flower previously and it has beautiful pale orange roses that flower all through summer.

However it looks as though it's now around 7ft tall and I have no idea how to prune it without killing it or damaging it. I've posted some pictures so that people can see how it is growing.

Any advice would be hugely appreciated.

thanks!

Jimmy Crawford · April 2015

How you prune it depends on what you have. Does it flower all at once or throughout the season? Good info here:- https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=178

Sally 2 · April 2015

It flowers all through the summer, thanks.

Jimmy Crawford · April 2015

Repeat-flowering shrub roses

Maintain a balanced framework by reducing strong new growth in late winter by up to one-third. “English” roses: prune back the previous season’s growths by 30 to 50 percent of their length

Shorten strong sideshoots to two or three buds

Mature plants require a light renewal pruning each winter by cutting some of the older main stems back to the base. This encourages vigorous new shoots from the base that will flower the following summer

Deadhead spent blooms as they fade in the summer, to encourage production of further flowers

With a rose that old, it'll either take the pruning well and bounce back or it'll die. Chop it back hard once it's done and see what happens.

Liriodendron · April 2015

If you want to reduce it a lot in height, you should do it while the rose is dormant, in winter. Cutting a lot off it now, when it's in leaf, will give it too much of a shock, I think.

Next winter (maybe February) you can be pretty brutal with it if you want. As Jimmy Crawford suggests, the RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) has good advice, with pictures, on the web.

How to prune overgrown rose?

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