Rose Pruning by Muriel Humenick

The Sacramento Bee
Rose Pruning by Muriel Humenick

[Cross talking]

Debbie Arrington: Today we are joined by Muriel Humenick. Master Rosarian and one of the leading experts on roses in Northern California. She is going to give us a demonstration on how to trim roses.

Muriel Humenick: One of the things that I usually start out with is telling you the right proper tools to be using. And the first thing I want to hold up is what not to use. Do not use this angle type shears on your roses it end up just smashing the end usually you rarely ever get a good cut out of it and what you need to have are the tools that we call bypass pruners. Whereas the one cutting edge bypasses the hook. It pulls down and you make your cut right there; right above a leaf.

Other tools that I use are loppers, good gloves; best gloves that I have found that withstand the thorns are goat skin gloves. And you can usually pull right along on there and not get stock at all. I found this not too long ago working up in on bushes that have a lot of thorns and by the time you put your gloves on and you are all covered up then you can go dig in right in to the climbers and all the thorny bushes.

One of the things that I am very adamant about is telling people that you have to look at the bush to determine the age of the canes. You want to remove the old wood to make room for the new wood. And the new wood usually has dark thorns and smooth bark. Whereas the older wood gets gray looking and the thorns end up being white. Across right where the label is, is a branch that has just man dared has not really done much; just sprouts. You would not get a good size flower out of these little tiny canes. You have to go to heavier wood. And then I like to be able to tell you that look down at the center of the bush and think of that as the hub cap of a wheel and these branches are coming away are the spokes of the wheel and that would be an ideal situation and when I make a cut, I want to make it towards what I call an outside eye.

The eye is wherever there was a leaf on the branch. Right above it, you will have an eye; some terms are calling it a bud. If I get nothing else cross to people I want the fact that you do not let the rose bush intimidate you. And a lot of folks let that happen. They go out in their yard and they look and they shake their head and then they wonder what. What to do next? Again, I am looking for the eye.

Forked branches leave a lot of color. You want that topiary look. Stubs from last year or whenever cleaned up, I removed. Here is another stub. We should remove that and then you will notice one of the things that is a booboo is half of the cane is dead. The wood is dead on it and you will not get much bloom. If I cut down in here, now I have clean wood. And I might have some branch develop right there. With every cut I make I want to have it to clean white wood; not compromised.


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