Gardeners have been warned to cut back the height of their shrub roses “immediately” – or the plants will “suffer a battering” from the wind during the colder months
With October’s arrival, it’s clear that summer is a distant memory and the countdown to winter has kicked off.
This signals a flurry of gardening tasks that need to be tackled before the onset of the harsh winter months, with October being the last chance to complete many of them. One such “essential” task is trimming down shrub roses, as advised by William Mitchell from Sutton Manor Nursery.
If gardeners tend to their roses in autumn, they’ll survive the winter unscathed, returning healthy, robust and blooming the next year. The crucial autumn rose care tasks include tidying up, removing spent flower blooms or diseased foliage and pruning.
William stated: “By the time the autumn months come around both shrub and bush roses will most likely have grown very tall. The arrival of the autumn months also means that the weather is rapidly starting to change and harsher weather conditions are beginning to arrive.”
The expert stressed that long stems “need to be cut back by a third and a half” of their current height “immediately”, reports the Express. When pruning, aim to create an open-centred framework to promote good airflow through the plant. Try to cut rose stems just above an outward-facing bud wherever possible.
William warned: “The conditions that can hugely damage these uncut long stems are wintery windy weather. Windy weather can cause considerable damage as the stems are constantly battered by strong winds and could even end up with the plant becoming loose in the soil.”
It’s also crucial to thin out the heads of standard roses, as their rounded tops can catch the wind and potentially snap off entirely in a severe storm. Throughout the rest of the month, gardeners should be removing any soggy, shrivelled rose flowers to prevent rot from setting in.
Any remaining foliage showing signs of disease, such as mildew or black spot, should be picked off and binned. Additionally, any infected leaves that have fallen onto the ground should be collected, as these can carry over diseases from one year to the next.
