I have always pruned my own roses. I like to prune lightly and I always prune to an outside eye.

My roses have grown well and I always buy a few new ones each year so my rose bushes have grown considerably both  in number and in size.

Not surprisingly, when pruning time came around this year, the prospect of pruning them myself was a little daunting.

In the past, I have always spread my rose pruning over a few days – a system that made my job a lot easier. But the downside is that it affects the blooming time if you prune at different times. This year I didn’t want to stagger the pruning as I want to have a big flush of roses in October.

In addition to this, my Mr Lincoln has grown to an enormous height – about 17 -20 feet and the canes are not canes but veritable tree trunks. The thought of pruning this monster was more than a little daunting.

So these are all my reasons for deciding to call in:

A Professional Rose Pruner

Well he arrived with all the necessary paraphernalia and I sat down with a cup of tea and watched him in silent triumph! This was the way to do it!

Fantastic! He went through the whole lot in about an hour and a half. He lopped off all the heavier canes in a matter of seconds. I was very impressed.

However!

When I checked the results after he left it seemed as if he had used a hedge cutter on my roses. It looked like a massacre. A fiasco. My beautiful rose canes had been chopped off mercilessly.

For a full week I couldn’t look at the rose bushes. I didn’t even inspect them to see if any shoots had appeared. And I swore I would never go the lazy route again.

Another however!

It is now a month later and spring has officially arrived. My roses have sent out shoots in all directions and I’m relieved to report that everything looks rather healthy.

With one important distinction.

In addition to the new leaves that are sprouting, most of the rose bushes are now sending out marvelous red shoots from their bases.

These will be the new canes that are every rose grower’s dream. In fact I love to see shoots like these even more than the flowers themselves because they hold so much promise for the new season.

So it remains to be seen if this was indeed a pruning fiasco or a fortunate mistake on my part.

It’s just remotely possible that this was a mistake that I may wish to repeat next year.

I’ll keep you posted about my rose pruning experiment.