10/09/2026
The best thing you can do for your roses this month is nothing.
All summer, deadheading keeps a rose blooming. In fall it works against you. Cutting a stem back to a bud pushes new growth, and that growth is still soft and tender when the first hard freeze arrives. Shorter days and cooler nights are already slowing your roses down and hardening them off for winter. Leaving the spent blooms to form hips adds to that signal.
Here in Broomfield we're right at our average first frost date, so my pruners are put away until spring. To find your own timing, look up your average first frost date. If it's four to six weeks out or less, stop cutting. In mild-winter climates, roughly zones 8 to 10, roses don't really go dormant, and this doesn't apply the same way.
Not every rose sets hips. Many of the very double modern roses rarely do. If spent blooms bother you, pull off the flower heads, but don't cut back into the stems.
Some roses make the most of it. Rugosas like Hansa set big orange-red hips that hang on well into winter, and Rosa glauca's dark red hips against its blue-gray foliage are one of my favorite sights this time of year.
And that's reason enough to leave the pruners in the shed.
Matt Douglas, High Country Roses
