When tending to those wonderful bloomers you should be equipped with the proper tools. A sturdy pair of knee pads and a pair goat skin gloves are good starters. Goat skin gloves are very flexible and the most puncture resistant of most leather gloves. I like to wear a tool belt that will accommodate my Felco Pruners and a small folding pruning saw. This way you don't have to tote around a tool bucket as you work your way from bush to bush. Spray your tools with alcohol to sterilize them from any disease you may pick up as you move from plant to plant.
Let's begin by removing all the dead leaves from the plant, and around the base from the year before. You want to keep the plant open for good air circulation and sunlight. This, and spraying, is a good first step in controlling plant diseases. Next thing to do is to expose any bud union that you see at the ground level. Buy leaving them covered the sun will not be able to get at them and new growth will be hampered. While working around the base of the plant, remove all the little useless canes and any shoots with brown coloring on them. Those are parts of the plant that won't accomplish anything. Sometimes when those canes are large or very thick, you may need a pair of loppers to remove them. If you look at the cut, you will see the browning inside that will tell you that the stem is older, weakening and dying. The lower you prune, the fewer blooms will grow, but they will be larger. The higher you prune, the more flowers will bloom, but they will be smaller.
Shaping your plant to make it grow wider and more outward will keep it open, so that air will circulate, and the sun will help prevent disease. Start by clipping to the first "outside" bud. That would be a bud that is facing outward. Snip it about a half an inch above the sprout because there is always a little bit of "die back" from that cut. If you cut closer than that, you run the risk of it dying back to the bud, and then the bud dies. Always make your cuts on an angle to prevent any water from sitting on top of the cut. This way the water runs off and makes the plant a little healthier. Also eliminate any canes that have a larger diameter than a pencil. Canes that size produce larger, healthier blooms.
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