How NOT to Prune Roses

So the Forsythia is in bloom. That means it's time to prune your roses.

When we bought our house it came with 18 rose bushes.

I hate pruning roses. So now we have just one rose. And I've tried to dig it up three times. It keeps surviving. So for the moment I have decided to stop fighting it and let it live as a trellis rose. It is not in a place that allows for a bush. And if I were to really dig up more of the root system I'd have to remove some of the sod.

I should have taking a picture before I asked my son to prune it. I'm just trying to teach him to work and I thought since I don't like this rose anyway, it won't matter what he does to it. The rose had gotten out of control and was at least 10 feet high is some parts. I needed the forward reaching shoots cut out and all of it trimmed down to fence height.

FENCE height.

This is what it looks like now.

However, with the wind that blew in this morning, this rose is now actually MORE than fence height. Guess the boy knows more than I thought.