A little bit of pruning

Today was a lovely mild day, following weeks of frost, snow and heavy rain. I only had a couple of hours free, so decided to prune the rose arch near the back door. This is Rosa "Snow Mountain" which has lovely open flowers - white with yellow stamens - and it flowers once in early June.

This is the arch before I started - the growth had got very top heavy, because I didn't prune it very hard last year.

It is easier to see the shape of the rose and the crossing branches, dead wood etc at this time of year. I decided to make up for last year by taking a lot of the branches off and thinning out the twiggy growth. I used  long-handled loppers to reach the higher parts of the arch.


This is the arch when I had finished. the picture is a little dark - it was getting quite late when I finished.

It looks quite drastic - I hope I haven't overdone it. I'll find out in June.