Roses - trimming? (foreclosure, house, fence)

[wankel7]

Hello all...I just bought a house and it has a large ammount of roses bushes around. I moved in last week and it looks like it haven't been trimmed. Is now to late to do anything to them? Or should I leave it alone? Thanks!

[formercalifornian]

As I understand it, roses in Colorado should be trimmed back in the spring. Here's a link.

Don't do any serious pruning in the fall. You may want to shorten any extra long canes that could break from high winds or heavy snow, but otherwise prune your roses no earlier than the end of April.

[wankel7]

Doh, I wonder how they liked the -15F

[formercalifornian]

I also bought a house with a lot of roses, which had been completely neglected for four years due to a death and foreclosure. They came right back with a little TLC, so apparently the lack of attention and frigid January temps didn't do much lasting harm.

[wankel7]

Ah, well that is good to know! I hear they are very hardy.

[2bindenver]

dead head them at an angle. feed them in the spring. spray them with dishwasing soap & water if you see aphids.

[denverian]

We have some climbin roses on our fence and all I do is in the Spring, trim off the old end growth where the last flowers had been. Then I do the same a couple times in Summer because I'll notice that suddenly all the blooms are done, so if you cut them off, within a couple weeks it'll bel full of new buds. But I do nothing special for them.