Pruning a rambling rose

Rambling roses shoot new growth from 'old wood', so they need pruning differently to other rose varieties. What this means is that any new stems that grow from the base of the plant throughout the summer won't flower until the following year, so when you are pruning you need to make sure you save these stems.

Keep reading to get our Rosarian's advice on pruning your rambling roses.

The Basic Principles Of Pruning

As with any rose, start by removing any stems that have gone bad or aren't growing in the right direction. The best way to remember this is DDD WW — Dead, Diseased and Damaged wood, or any wood that is Weak or Wayward. Removing this first gives you a much clearer idea of the state of the plant.

Why do you need to prune rambling roses?

Rambling roses need pruning every year to prevent them becoming a tangled cluster of stems, which results in far fewer flowers. Pruning also gives you the opportunity to sort through the rose's stems and tie in any new ones to your wall or structure.

What time of year should you prune your rambling roses?

Our Rosarians recommend pruning climbing and rambling roses in November and December, before they have started to shoot any new growth. You can do it later in the winter if needed — you might just chop off some of that new growth.

How should you prune a rambling rose?

For the first year or two, limit your pruning as much as possible, until you have trained the stems across your structure or along your wall. Our Rosarians advise cutting each stem back by no more than a third during this time. If there are any stems you don't need for your structure — for example, ones pointing in the wrong direction — cut them right back to the base of the plant.

In the years that follow, once you're happy with the positioning and size of your rambler, cut all of the new shoots that have flowered over the summer back to between 1 and 3 inches tall. Any shorter than this and you won't leave enough room for it to flower the following summer.

After a few years, your rambler will have grown a whole new horizontal stem that all of the new growth is shooting from, leaving your original horizontal stems an odd shape. To fix this, cut the old stem back to the base of the plant and tie the new stem in along the structure in its place.