This step-by-step guide will help you make your hybrid tea roses bear the champion flowers that is their potential. Pruning is a major factor in getting the best blooms out of these traditionally beloved plants.
Timing and Tools for Spring Pruning
You’ll need to make many cuts near the center base of this thorny plant, so loppers are a must, letting you reach in comfortably. Wear hide gloves to protect you from the prickles. Rose is weak-wooded, so you’ll be able to cut even fairly thick canes with hand pruners, but don’t be tempted to strain. Major pruning work on hybrid teas and all roses are done in the early spring. Rose canes are killed by low temperatures, so you want to delay pruning until winter has done its damage and you can see which canes have been killed. If possible, time your pruning for after the threat of coldest days and before the swelling of buds in spring. Sometimes we don’t always get to have ideal timing, especially in spring. It’s okay to wait until later, as it just means that you’ll set back your rose’s bloom some. It’s also okay to prune too early, but you might cause extra winter damage, and you’ll have to follow up with additional pruning again later in the year.
Instructions
Note that hybrid teas get heavily, heavily pruned. You’ll be far exceeding the typical rule of 1/3. Look for the canes that most closely match this profile—these are the ones you will save, and not cut into yet. Thick and green is good; these guys have a lot of energy. Thin, flimsy, or not growing straight are unsuitable. To find your candidate five-or-so main stems, cut out the thin weak stuff and step back. See if you can pick out, from the greatly reduced set of canes you have now, your five-ish to make your framework. Once you have done so, thin out all other canes by cutting them down at their bases. Roses are alternate-branching, so cut on an angle. The angle of your cut matches the angle of the dormant bud you cut above. Cutting these canes back seems extreme—we’ve already punished the plant so much—but this step is where the long stems come from. The buds on this framework will put up long growth with very large flowers on the end, because all the energy in the plant’s roots is channeled up into so few buds.
