When the roses die on my rose bushes, do i cut the stem or do i leave the dead flower to get new blooms.?

Dead, diseased or damaged wood on any rose should be removed as soon as it is seen.

Pruning is an important and necessary step in growing roses. Pruning keeps the plant healthy. It promotes new growth, removes dead, broken or diseased canes and trains roses to a desired shape. Pruning encourages flowering, either more blooms or larger blooms, and is essential to keep modern rose varieties blooming repeatedly all summer long.

Aussie B......... is incorrect ............

when it comes to roses..........but the term dead heading is correct.

Roses would fit into the category of woody stems so PLEASE use pruners.

Some flowers you can just pinch off the blooms BUT not all of them.

Flowers that feature woody stems. These would be plants such as phlox, peony, aster, coneflower (Echinacea spp.), coreopsis, hosta, zinnia, lily, and Rudbeckia. Using a sharp bladed pruner such as the OXO floral snips, the Fiskars Floral Snips or the Barnel Bonzai Scissors, cut off the spent flower a quarter-inch above the next bud. Or in the case of the following flowering plants: delphinium, floxglove, veronica, salvia, yarrow, geranium, and rose; cut off the faded spikes of these flowers to encourage a second flush of bloom.

For a better understanding of how to dead head open the link below.

The puropse of doing this is to promote and encourage more blooming....the dead flower still takes up nutrition from the plant..........

http://www.frostproof.com/deadheading.htm

..............General Suggestions..........

..............For Roses......forum.......

http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/32903

The pruning of rose bushes can be confusing, especially when you start talking about hybrid teas, old garden roses, shrub roses, once-blooming roses, and English roses. This confusion leads to doubt and improper pruning or no pruning.

The class of rose and the time of year it blooms influence the type and amount of pruning. General pruning principles apply to all roses, but there are differences between classes. The closer one gets to species roses the less severe the pruning. Hybrid teas have the distinction of requiring the most severe pruning for optimum bloom and plant health.

Because of the variety of rose types available, one may need to have an understanding of how the rose flowers. Pruning should also be looked at as applying a few common sense principles to accomplish several tasks. These tasks are to remove dead, damaged, or diseased wood; increase air circulation; keep the shrub from becoming a tangled mess; shape the plant; and encourage the growth of flowering wood.

The majority of pruning is done in the spring. Many rose growers suggest waiting until the forsythias start to bloom as a good signal for the pruning season to begin.

The goal of spring pruning is to produce an open centered plant. This allows air and light to penetrate easily.

Basic pruning fundamentals that apply to all roses include:

* Use clean, sharp equipment.

* Cut at a 45-degree angle about 1/4 inch above outward-facing bud. The cut should slant away from the bud.

* Entirely remove all dead or dying canes. These can be identified as canes that are shriveled, dark brown, or black.

* After making cuts, it is suggested to seal the ends of the cuts to prevent the entry of cane borers. White glue works well.

* Remove all thin, weak canes that are smaller than a pencil in diameter.

* If roses are grafted and there is sucker growth, remove it. The best way is to dig down to the root where the sucker is originating and tear it off where it emerges. Cutting suckers off only encourages regrowth of several suckers where there once was one."

My in-law's let nature do the work. They leave the healthy flowers on the bush and they have tons of roses each year on each bush. I take photos of them every year and I know the only thing he does is cut them back before Spring starts and they bloom like crazy the entire season.

Cutting the stems is pruning and has to be done to keep the bush in shape and to keep flowering. If you are talking about last season's flowers, you need to cut the canes back to about a foot from the ground. New canes will grow and flower. It is hard for a new Gardner to do, but will give you better bushes. Keep flowers cut, and it will make more flowers. Spray for aphids with a solution of one tablespoon of detergent to a pint of water. Best wishes

It is my impression that they should be removed. The material left is the reproductive apparatus i. e. it produces seed. Thus the plant will put great effort into doing just that and not into creating another bloom. In most cases the effort to produce a seed is fruitless however and energy wasted. So to get new blooms, cut the old off the bush.

Cut the dead flower off at an angle and new ones will follow.

Just take a pair of sharp scissors and cut off the head - not the stem. We call it "dead heading."

You clip just above the stem with five leaves, not the three leaf one.

Pick the buds off when they die - don't cut them off. Just pinch the stem, then pull smoothly. It's called "dead heading".

you cut the stem to the next three leafs,do this continuously all gowing season