I posted a message in the GardenWeb roses forum about how to prune my Ruby Meidiland roses. I’ve been cutting the canes back to 18″ or so at the end of each winter, but I thought I’d read somewhere that they do well with little or no pruning. Here’s the best answer:

Ruby Meidiland belongs in the landscape series of Meidiland roses. I’ve grown Scarlet, Alba and Fuchsia Meidiland for the graceful cascading effect with hardly any pruning, except dead canes. Arching canes build upon arching canes resulting in fountain shape when they mature. Oldest canes (usually closer to the ground) eventually die out. Awkward growing canes can be tied to other canes or pruned as I see fit. Any portion of the canes or branches that are 3 years or older and have had no blooms or no new canes sprouting from them can be pruned if I have time to prune them. 2-4 year old canes flower best.

These are large rose shrubs that need lot of space to show their full cascading potential, and they’re not supposed to be pruned back to 18″ every year, unless you have space constraint and want upright growths – but then there many other roses for smaller space. You have a great Meidiland hedge. Cascading effect can be quickly achieved if you just deadhead the spent clusters and let the new growths take shape.

I’m going to let them grow naturally this year and just remove some dead or crowded canes. I hope some new canes sprout from the crown so I’ll have more naturally arching ones instead of arching ones that come off of an 18″ base cane. I’ll see how it goes this year and report back at the end of the season on it.