How to prune climbing roses for winter to ensure large, healthy blooms come spring

While this time of the year is great for pruning several plants in your garden, from summer jasmine to raspberries, roses including the climbing kind are not one of them. Winter, specifically between December and February, is when to prune roses according to gardening pros. But if you want to be prepared and know how to prune climbing roses for winter there is no harm in that. In fact, we commend you. After all, luck favours the prepared.

So if you are in possession of a climber and in need of some gardening advice, then you’ve come to the right place as our panel of experts shares a step-by-step guide to the best way of pruning climbing roses. Let’s get snipping. But only with a pair of clean, sharp pruning shears and secateurs, you don’t want to harm your plant with dirty, blunt ones.

How to prune climbing rose for winter 

If you've learnt how to plant climbing roses and you now a have a healthy rose bush on your hands, learning how to prune it should be next on your agenda. Firstly, you want to get everything ready. Your pruning shears or secateurs, as well as protective clothing and thick gardening gloves as those thorns are sharp.

What you'll need

• Pruning shears or secateurs like these Gonicc 8" Professional Secateurs at Amazon
• Thick, thorn-proof gardening gloves like these NickyPicky Gardening Gloves at Amazon
• Support wire like this AMLOOPH 30M Garden Wire For Climbing Plants at Amazon

‘Ensure they have support before pruning, as removing the stems without support can cause damage,’ warns Jack Sutcliffe, co-founder of shed manufacturer, Power Sheds.

If you are training your climbing roses, then Steve Chilton, garden expert from LeisureBench, recommends to ‘place support wires to which the shoots can be tied. The lowest wire should be 50cm off the ground, with wires 30cm apart at least. Tie newly grown canes to the supports.’

Then you can get pruning.

‘First, you want to start by removing dead, damaged or dying branches, as it is best to get them trimmed back to allow the stronger branches to grow,’ says Natalie White at Rated People.

‘Carefully put these cuttings into your general waste bin, rather than your compost, so you don’t spread any diseases,’ warns Fiona Jenkins, gardening expert at MyJobQuote.co.uk.

Jack continues, ‘Remove any stems that are growing inwards towards the centre of the plant, crossing each other, or rubbing against each other to allow better air circulation.’    

Steve Chilton

Steve Chilton is a passionate and knowledgeable garden expert with several years of experience within the field. As the director of LeisureBench, an industry-leading garden furniture company, Steve has developed strong expertise for all things nature and plants. Steve is a keen educator and loves to share this knowledge with others. He strives to simplify complex garden practices and encourage eco-friendly gardening.

He continues, ‘When making each cut, ensure it is made at a 45-degree angle, just above an outward-facing bud. This is because new growth will emerge from the bud, leading to healthy and balanced development.’

‘Next, prune any flowered shoots back by around two thirds – this will ensure they grow back nice and strong the following year,’ Natalie says.

If you prefer light pruning over going all in, then Fiona has a trick up her sleeve, ‘If you don’t want to prune too heavily, you can tie back long shoots. This will help train your rose and stop strong winds snapping them off.’

Either way, you should never remove more than one third of your rose plant when pruning as this can weaken it.

Why do you need to prune climbing roses?

You might be wondering why you need to prune your climbing rose plant. Or do you actually have to prune it? The answer is yes, you do. And there are several reasons why.

'In order to have a healthy climber, it is essential you spend some time each year pruning,’ Natalie explains. 'It helps to remove the dead and damaged branches, which will allow the other branches and shoots to grow for the next year. If you don’t prune your climber and it gets out of control, you might find that the stems can cross over with each other, not only will this leave you with a mass of stems to try and sort out, but it could end up leading to disease and fungal infections.'

Steve continues with a few more good reasons, ‘It also often helps increase the size of the flowers, as pruning offers the plant more energy for flower production. Climbing roses have vigorous growth, and often grow pretty wild without pruning. This means that they naturally become tangled and overwhelmed, so regular pruning is essential to keep them in check and ensure that they don't become overgrown and messy. 

‘Pruning climbing roses when training them enables you to effectively shape and direct their growth, as you have the ability to guide and control the plant's development through pruning practices.’

So whatever you do, just don’t skip pruning your climbing roses this winter. They’ll thank you for it with large, beautiful blooms next spring. Just wait.