Pruning roses properly
The Loire Valley roses live up to their reputation of being beautiful, but a certain expertise is needed to keep them looking at their best! Head gardener at the Villandry gardens, Anthony Coué, reveals some of his secrets.
Why prune roses?
This yearly maintenance prevents the rose bush losing its lower leaves and also encourages new shoots to grow which will ensure exceptional flowering throughout the year. The aim is to obtain harmoniously shaped, well-balanced heads which are not lopsided. To do so, make sure you use very sharp secateurs and disinfect them with methylated spirits before moving on to the next rose bush.
The Villandry kitchen garden and its stem roses
Pruning climbing roses ensures a beautiful flowering garden
The right time
March is the best time of year to prune repeat-flowering roses, regardless of what type they are (shrubs, standards or climbers). The last hard frosts are over and late pruning avoids the risk of disease as the wounds heal quickly. Also, if the days have been relatively mild, the shoots have started to come through and there’s less chance of making a mistake. Leave 2 to 3 shoots on the weaker branches, and 4 or 5 on the more vigorous branches of the rose. Remove all the dead wood, useless twigs and blackened branches, as well as any suckers coming from below the graft union.
White roses
The beautiful gardens of Villandry château - France
Roses of Villandry
Shrub roses and standard roses
Cut back the remaining main stems, making a clean cut 3 mm above the third bud from the bottom, angled away from the bud eye so that rainwater does not flow over it. If your rose is very vigorous (each year its shoots rise to over 1.50 metres above its base), the main stems must be cut back to 5 or 6 buds.
Chédigny, a village-garden
Climbing roses
Same principles as for shrub or standard roses: keep the healthy scaffold branches (trained horizontally) and a few secondary branches. Prune the secondary branches back to 3 buds – it is these that will flower in the summer.
Once-flowering roses
In the case of ‘once-flowering’ roses, in other words, they produce a single magnificent bloom in summer, pruning is carried out in September by removing any twigs and dead or diseased branches and cutting back those that have just flowered.
Roses and gardens
Alongside the Château de Villandry, the Château du Rivau houses a large collection of fragrant roses. Many of the bushes bear British names (The Pilgrim, Graham Thomas, Lady Emma Hamilton, Queen of Sweden…), but there are also Brocéliande, Michelangelo and Blanche Moreau. The garden village of Chédigny is not to be outdone, with over 1,000 rose bushes (270 different varieties) keeping company with 3,000 perennials! Every year, a major rose festival is held in June, when the flowers are all the more beautiful.
Known for its tomato conservatory, the Château de la Bourdaisière also delights visitors from May onwards with the magnificent blooms of its rose bushes.