Rose early pruning

[Kostas Kavoussanakis]

Hi,

If impatient, the bottom-line question is "will I kill a rose if I
prune too early"?

The background is as follows: up here in Scotland the advice is to
prune roses in mid-March, perhaps a bit later. We currently have hard
frosts, and I would not touch my ground-planted roses. However, I have
two large (+35cm diameter) pots against the south-facing wall of the
house, and particularly one of them has new growth up to 5 cm at the
mo (despite the fact that the surface of the compost is frozen-though
not white).

So, am I rightly tempted to prune this one? And will I kill it if it's
hit by even harder frost?

Thanks,
Kostas

[Dwayne]

Good morning. I always prune my roses and fruit trees about the 15 th of
February, weather permitting. It seems to me that it is better giving the
plants time to heal over/dry out where I cut, before the bugs are out. The
important thing is to do it while they are still dormant.

"Kostas Kavoussanakis" <kavo...@epcc.ed.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.51.03...@3000.rcpp.rq.np.hx...

[Pete The Gardener]

On Mon, 17 Feb 2003 09:24:39 +0000, Kostas Kavoussanakis
<kavo...@epcc.ed.ac.uk> wrote:

>
>Hi,
>
>If impatient, the bottom-line question is "will I kill a rose if I
>prune too early"?
>

<Snip>

>
>So, am I rightly tempted to prune this one? And will I kill it if it's
>hit by even harder frost?

It's unlikely that you'll kill it, though if things are really cold
you could well get a bit of die back. I would be tempted to leave it
for a little while longer if I were you, I haven't even done ours yet
and it's a fair bit warmer here I would guess.
--
Pete The Gardener
A room without books is like a body without a soul.
pete_the...@hotmail.com

[Alison]

"Pete The Gardener" <pete_the...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3e51e046...@news.cis.dfn.de...

> On Mon, 17 Feb 2003 09:24:39 +0000, Kostas Kavoussanakis
> <kavo...@epcc.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> >
> >Hi,
> >
> >If impatient, the bottom-line question is "will I kill a rose if I
> >prune too early"?
> >
> <Snip>
> >
> >So, am I rightly tempted to prune this one? And will I kill it if it's
> >hit by even harder frost?
>

Hi Kostas

I'm in Scotland too and I'm itching to get out there and prune the roses.
Trouble is, I did it one year too early (ground and pots) and, as Pete said,
I did get die back and as I had pruned nice n tidy, there wasn't much left
to flower that year. They did ok the following year though so weren't
killed.

I now hang on til mid-March.

--A