When to Cut

Rosebushes begin drawing in moisture with the first hint of approaching dusk, and they hold it until the morning light gets strong.  Since you want blooms with as much moisture in them as possible, cut either before midmorning or after mid afternoon.

We cut all roses in the late afternoons at Garden Valley Ranch simply because it's more convenient than in the morning.  When summer days are long, we begin cutting after 5:00 p.m. even though we face thousands of cuts each evening.  As the days grow shorter, particularly after the loss of daylight savings, we begin earlier.  All you really want to avoid is cutting during midday, especially during hot weather, when blooms are limp.  The hour of the day at which roses are cut from their bushes is actually far less important than the conditioning you give the roses after you cut them.

Stage to Cut

Blooms of each rose variety must reach a certain stage of openness before they can be cut if they're expected to open farther or fully.  The safest general rule to follow is:  Wait until the sepals are down.

Sepals are those leaflike coverings of rosebuds.  They are easily as individual as foliage, and some are downright decorative.  Most are the same color green as the foliage of the bush on which they grow, but some have red serrated edges.  Sepals grow from just under the bud and join their tips over it, completely surrounding the swelling bloom.  As buds develop, so do sepals, until they can contain the bloom no longer.  They then begin to unfurl one by one.  In some roses this unfurling is dramatic, as the sepals arch gracefully backward in brackets that seem to lend elegant architectural support to the coming bloom.

When the sepals are down and the bud has begun to open ("cracked" in florist lingo), the bloom can be cut.  How far the bud must have opened before the cut is made varies from one kind of rose to another.  Those varieties with fewer petals don't have to be open very far before they can be cut.  As petalage increases, so does the necessary degree of bud openness.  Heavily petaled roses must show a row of petals in addition to a well-defined center around which other rows of petals are developing.  If you cut them before this stage, they won't open.  With certain other blooms, surprisingly, the sepals needn't be down at all before you cut.

Observe the sepals closely as you cut blooms, and you'll quickly become familiar with these variations in cutting stages.  You may even grow quite daring as you learn which ones can be safely cut with their sepals still tightly furled, as is the case with a black Mister Lincoln or a still-green Sweet Afton.