I have to admit this is not really a job I look forward to because at the end of it I do tend to look like I have been dragged through a hedge backwards and that ‘hedge’ is covered in thorns. My advice long sleeves, trousers (not a job to be done on a hot day) and some very good gloves.
All rambling roses flower once usually in early summer and produce a mass of new shoots each year. If left unpruned they quickly become a tangled mess and produce fewer flowers.
The roses I have been battling with are Rosa ‘Félicité Perpétue’ a vigorous rambler that in this instance is trained over a fence. I am pretty ruthless with these roses as they are on the edge of a driveway so not only do they need to look neat they also need to not get in the way of cars. As you can see from the picture they are all over the place!
The first thing I do is remove all of the stems that have flowered this year, cutting them right back to the base. In this situation I only need around 8-9 new shoots that are then trained against the fence, so the weaker new shoots and any that are going off in a funny direction are also removed at this stage. The picture below gives you an idea as to the amount of material I remove and what I am then left with.
The last thing to do is then tie in the new shoots and if they have developed any side shoots I shorten these by about two thirds. I’m left with a good tidy plant that will cover the fence with its clusters of fragrant creamy/pink flowers next year.
As I have said I am pretty ruthless with these roses because of the position they are grown in. If your rambling roses are being used in a more traditional way then you really only need to remove about a third of the old shoots back to the base along with the obligatory three ‘d’s’ (damaged, dead,
Best of luck and remember your gloves!!