Prune Roses Now for Spring Blooms

Many roses need pruning in late winter. As the snow melts and the weather hints of spring, take a look at your roses. Many are already showing bud development.

Pruning depends on the type of rose. Pruning early will save the growth energy for the pruned plant. Late pruning can cut off a lot of the plant’s effort that cannot be replaced in time for blooming. Provide roses a sunny, very well ventilated location with good drainage and attentive pruning for best results.

When to Prune: Repeat bloomers like floribunda, hybrid tea, hybrid rugosa and shrub roses are classed as modern roses. Unlike ‘old’ or ‘antique’ type roses, which bloom once on last year’s wood, modern roses usually bloom on new wood. Old roses may only bloom one time per year. Modern roses bloom repeatedly or constantly.
Trimming the modern rose in late winter or early spring will encourage new, healthy growth filled with many blooms. Old roses however, should be pruned after blooming. To encourage the most growth on the modern rose in Kentucky, pruning can begin as early as late February, and no later than early April. Pruning modern roses after early April may dwarf the plant, removing a lot of growth that will not be replaced in time for blooming.

How to Prune: Using sharp pruning cutters, make cuts ¼ inch above a strong, outfacing bud. Don’t leave stubs or deface the bud. The bud will then produce branches that will grow outward from the plant rather than crowding the center of the plant. Remove canes smaller than pencil diameter. Prune for a natural shape unless a rigid style is sought. Deadhead all season, removing blooms back to a stronger stem, with five leaflets when reasonable.

Hybrid Teas and Floribunda: A hybrid tea can be pruned severely, to 12 to 18 inches high. Taller will create smaller, more plentiful flowers. Leave 4 to 5 canes. Hybrid teas are pruned to create specimen flowers and a lightweight plant, not to create a bushy shrub. Floribundas are leggy bushes to shrub type bushes with short stemmed flower clusters. Prune leggy varieties severely as you would hybrid teas. Prune the shrub type floribunda later in spring and more lightly.

Climber and Pillar Roses: Climbing roses that bloom once are pruned after blooming. Repeat climbers are pruned in late winter. Prune one fourth of the old canes of all climbers and trim lateral shoots back to two or three buds. Retain a handful of healthy, strong canes. Further trim for size and shape. During the blooming season, deadhead repeat bloomers to encourage more roses.


Shrub and Rugosa: Prune modern shrub roses after two or three years of growth. Remove dead or crowded canes. Cut back by one third and trim for shape. Hybrid rugosa repeat their blooms and have dense, arching canes. Rugosas have colorful hips (fruit). Cut out old canes and shorten remaining canes by one third.

Knock Out Roses® are popular, very hardy shrub roses that demand less care than most roses. In Kentucky, in early April use hedge trimmers or loppers to cut the plant down by about one third to one half its height. Don’t take the plant to less than 12 to 18 inches in height.

Pruning will enhance the growth of roses considerably. As winter ends go outdoors and dream of sunny days while preparing your roses for spring. You will be rewarded with breathtaking blooms full of color and fragrance.

Get an Early Start on Spring - Start Seeds Indoors

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Starting seeds indoors is simple, fun and inspirational. So much life is packed in those tiny little seeds. Water, a sunny window and some soil media will work wonders and save money. Although there are many easy ways to start seeds, we will focus on simple plastic biodomes available at home centers. The inexpensive biodome will let you plant seeds in a peat plug that can then be planted in a larger pot or directly into the soil in the spring growing season.

Soil Media Biodomes are a plastic tray that holds water and has shallow pockets that hold peat pellets. The dome (or ‘greenhouse’) is a clear plastic lid to retain moisture. The peat pellets are compressed peat mix wrapped in a thin net. When water is added to the peat pellets they quickly expand about 5 times their size. The pellet is encased in a nifty netting that holds the soil together. Biodomes are available in many sizes, holding anywhere from a dozen to 72 peat pellets. This year a narrow tray is available that will fit neatly into a window sill

Seed Selection Select annuals, perennials and or vegetables. Trees can be started too. Tomatoes, peppers, lettuces, broccilli all start well indoors. Black-eyed susans, Shasta daisy, petunia, allysym, foxglove, delphinium, cleome, zinnia, marigold, dianthus, cone flower and household herbs will flourish in the biodome. Spruce, sycamore, and maple will also do well.

Planting the seeds Fluff the peat pellet soil with a tooth pick. Tiny seeds like petunia or foxglove are just tapped into the top of the soil, not covered. Misting the top of the petunia plugs is helpful until germination. Other seeds are covered to a depth of two times their size. The seed package will detail the planting depth. Small seeds can be put in a small spoon and tapped into the peat plug with a tooth pick. Put two or three seeds in each plug. Label your seeds.

Water and Light Always water from the bottom of the plug, do not water the tops of the plugs and plants. The peat will soak up the water easily. Pellets should be damp but not sitting in water. Keep the biodome lid on until half of the seedlings emerge. Then remove the lid. Add water when pellets turn light brown. Seeds need light overhead. Use either a bright, southern exposure window or a fluorescent light 4 to 5 inches above the seeds for 14 to 16 hours per day. Less light will cause leggy, weak plants.

Fertilizing A few days after germination (seed breaking soil surface) use a water soluable fertilizer at half strength. Use a 15-30-15 formula. Water from the bottom.

Damping Off & Hardening Off Seedlings that fall over at ground level have ‘damped off’. They are stricken by a fungus and will die. Remove the plant and peat plug and dispose of it. If more than a few damp off, remove the afflicted, and spray the rest with fungicide. Damping off is caused by too much moisture, not enough light, or high temperature. Seedlings need day temperatures from 60 to 70 degrees and night temperatures at 50 to 60 degrees is fine. Remember, spring is cool.

Hardening off comes when you are ready to plant your seedlings, usually in late April or early May. Place your tray of seedling, which may be a few inches tall by then, outdoors in the shade for a few hours. After a couple days, give them an hour of dappled sun, and increase sun exposure over a few days. Indoor seedlings need time to produce more chlorophyll to handle sunlight. If you don’t harden them off the seedlings will die.

Thinning & Transplanting Select the strongest seedling in each plug. Snip the other seedlings with manicure scissors. Don’t pull them out as you will disturb the roots of the seedlings you wish to keep. Remaining seedlings can be pinched back, removing the second set of leaves to encourage branching. In April, or earlier if plants get over 4 to 5 inches tall, you can transplant seedlings to larger pots with potting soil. They can then be planted outside in late April and early May. Transplant the plug directly into the potting soil or garden soil. The beauty of the biodome is the ease of planting plugs. No big holes to dig! Many plants will survive until planting time in the biodome. However, if plants get leggy and spindly, they will benefit from the more nourishing potting soil of a transitional container.

Seedlings usually germinate in 4 to 10 days. From the day of planting they have been sending down roots. With soil, water, light and your care they will make lovely seedlings ready to plant in April and May. Their determined progress from their tiny beginnings are the miracle of spring. You as gardener are part of the living reassurance of which we are so privileged a part.

Basic Landscaping III – Landscape Plan

In our last two columns we have made a landscaping sketch and explored possible styles. Now we are ready to finish the plan for your yard. We will consider plantings suited for our area.

Shrubs: A home is usually surrounded by foundation plantings arranged in beds. These visually anchor the house to the ground. Without them a house looks like it has bare ankles. Evergreen shrubs are the backbone of these beds. Yew, juniper, boxwood, holly, rhododendron and azaleas keep leaves or needles all winter in eastern Kentucky. Shrubs back lower growth. These shrubs are usually trimmed two to three feet tall. Taller, conical Arborvitae accent corners and insets of buildings.

Mixing in flowering deciduous shrubs will add color and fragrance in the warm months. My neighbor has a row of viburnum on the east side of their house and the delicious scent fills spring evenings. Lilac, forsythia, weigela, shrub crepe myrtle, spirea, mock orange, flowering quince, fire bush and shrub roses are practical, fast growing choices. Deciduous shrubs will fill in more quickly while you wait for slower growing evergreens.

Trees: Many trees grow well in our area including white oaks, however oaks grow slowly. Plant these first and then add fast growing hardwoods like tulip poplar, silver and red maple, sweet gum and clump river birch. These all grow well in our dense clay. White pine, black pine and hemlock grow quickly and fluff out a yard beautifully, providing privacy and windbreak. Ornamental specimen trees like Cleveland pear, pink and white dogwood, eastern redbud, flowering crabapple and magnolia are the joy of spring and add such color to your yard. Crepe myrtle thrives in Kentucky and gives color in July and August after all the spring trees have bloomed.

Perennials: Plan space for blooming herbaceous perennials. These flowers will reward you for many years with cheerful blooms that will spread each year. Spring bulbs and creeping phlox are intensely welcomed in spring. Daylily, foxglove, roses, shasta daisies, garden phlox, black-eyed susans, cone flowers, columbine, clematis, bee balm, coreopsis, blanket flower, sweet william, iris, and lilies are all summer bloomers that will give years of delight. Most of these require a sunny location. Pick a color scheme and carry it through the yard. Plant perennials in drifts rather than one or two of an item. Many can be started from seed indoors in February. Try to plan for a few things blooming throughout the warm season. Gardeners love to trade perennial starts.

Annuals: Finally plan a little room for annuals. Maybe you will reserve annuals for pots and hanging baskets of petunias or impatiens, because they will perish in the winter. But their short lives are a riot of blooms requiring only faithful watering, sun and plant food. Place your annuals strategically, around doorways, mailboxes and other focal points in the front and back of your house. You will be surprised how much you enjoy them. Even our undomesticated bachelor relative used to dote on a fabulous wave petunia on his front porch, to the welcome of all.

Don’t forget your vegetable garden. If you feel timid about vegetables, plan for some patio tomatoes in pots, or some potted herbs outside your kitchen door. Once you experience the freshness of basil in a tossed salad or your own sun-ripened tomatoes, you will be hooked.

Include trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals in your landscape plan. Select what suits your taste. Remember, what is on paper can be changed. Complete your plan to scale as we discussed in Landscaping I. You now have a plan for spring!