I only remove leaves if they show disease.

Jackie

I am not that familiar with rose foliage behavior in your climate, here at least if it turns autumny red or yellow it won't turn back to green, so can as well be removed. You might not prune the canes, but just do some tidy up, as it might be good idea to remove all the spindly and weak growth if you have any of that (I usually remove baby canes once the plant starts getting normal ones, even if that is after a year and leave it alone if it doesn't yet).

As I said in the other thread, I am rather skeptical about that article, especially keeping the rose leaves around, if the roses actually get disease in the garden. Also leaves like MAC tend to have prickles on the foliage, so might be nightmare if those things dry out. We periodically get some new advices when it comes to gardening, usually backed up by the research X (gotta love generic "Japanese scientists"), so often it is wise not to jump and try every new care tip, especially if it says something totally opposite as the established care. Would be nice to read the actual research report by the university though, but from years of gardening, common sense usually is the best adviser. That and if it is not broken, don't fix it. :)

The logic behind removing leaves is several fold: to promote "dormancy" to allow the rose to "rest", presuming it's necessary; to remove disease spores and potential insect eggs; "clean-up" the garden to begin fresh with new mulch and looking pretty for a better rose growing season. Personally, I do it primarily because it is EASIER to read the plant to prune it when I can SEE the structure of it.

Not every garden nor every plant requires foliage removal. Some are just too large and dense to do it. Others are much easier to defoliate. Other than blood loss, healing time, discomfort and time and energy required to accomplish it, I can't think of a downside. Kim

Kim, I completely understand that to prune you have to see what you're doing. When I pruned recently, the lower leaves had already yellowed and fallen off and, once I had pruned off the upper parts that I knew I didn't want, the roses were stripped almost completely bare. Another consideration in using the leaves as mulch was that they had no disease on them. These were modern or Austin roses, and I wonder how easy it will be to prune some of my teas when they get larger and need it, since in my garden they almost all still have green leaves, with spiny canes underneath them. How would one undertake to prune these, if it became necessary?

Ingrid

Ingrid - Don't faint - I use hedge clippers to shape them, but only if necessary - usually I just leave them alone. I really don't think teas do not need to be pruned unless they are in your way.

Jackie

Kim and Jackie are right. The only reason to cut growth off Tea Roses is if they have grown into someplace you don't want them to be.

WE have had terrible windstorms lately, and a lot of leaves are gone. NOT, of course, the leaves with rust. Ohhhh noooo.
THOSE leaves aren't going anywhere.

I have, I think, two roses that rust. Both are HPs, and both are retained for specific reasons, but both will be stripped this week.
I've been holding off because the larger of the two is still blooming, and I was greedy for the flowers.

But it's time.

Jeri
Coastal Ventura Co., SoCal

It's great to hear about teas from the experienced folks here. Thus far this year I had already decided to focus on the three or four with "issues" (diseased leaves, weird shape and odd, crowding old branches, ambitions for world domination...) and leave the rest, which look fine to me, be (thank you, Jackie). Further, just as Kim says, I found I did have to strip most of the leaves off Rhodologue Jules Gravereaux and Etoile de Lyon to see what was going on with their structure. I had also just sadly concluded I needed to do roughly the same for Alliance Franco-Russe (extra-bushy monster that he is) in order to see what's what and what, if anything, needs to go. It will be tedious but a good thing -- AFR has a lot of disease-stricken leaves after that fungus-y weather we had last summer.

AH! Y'all don't get those screaming Santa Ana windstorms! Yesterday's gusts here in Camarillo were clocked at 44 mph, but we've had bigger ones, these past several days.

On the whole, I detest them. But they DO strip old foliage off of the roses. Where it goes? Probably onto our neighbor's hillside . . .

Jeri
Coastal Ventura Co., SoCal

I remove the leaves from most of my roses, then spray with copper. There are a few exceptions.

Rosefolly

I planted a nice windbreak for my Austins and it greatly saves the blossoms. On the other hand, now I have to cut off all the leaves. Santa Ana Winds are a pain.

Chihuahua teeth - what a funny and apt comparison. I really appreciate the explanation of the how's and why's of pruning tea roses, or not pruning, as the case may be. Of course anything requiring less work is a good thing, not to mention the prospect of huge shrubs with hundreds of beautiful blooms.

Ingrid

Well, here's one motivation to strip off old leaves once in awhile, even on monster teas. I started in on Alliance Franco-Russe late this afternoon and soon figured out why the shape of the rose was bugging me. "Why does that rose look more like a hedge than a bush," I had wondered. What I saw once I had some leaves off is that it has been ground-layering down there in the depths and it really WAS becoming a hedge, all on it's own initiative. There's at least two new plants, plus some older ones, all leap-frogging along to new territory. HAH!

I like to strip the foliage off so that there are no yellow or brown leaves in Spring. It's just an aesthetic preference, I guess.

Since my roses get more chill hours, I tend to leave the leaves that are not old or diseased on the plant as long as possible. The plant is using those leaves to produce food for the spring flush. There are plenty of roses with leaves to cleanup and I can wait to prune the roses which hang onto their leaves and do the others first.

Yes, I desparately feel a need to see the structure of the plant as I prune, it's just a matter to determine which rose needs pruning first.

Smiles,
Lyn