If you have roses from last year, the first week of April is usually the time to begin the new season.

If you protected your plants over winter, pull back the mulch to the edge of the bed. If you mounded material up in the center of the plant, it may be easier to use a hard fine water spray to do this. This method will prevent breaking off those new shoots growing in the medium.

This new growth will shrivel and die if exposed to the sun, so uncover on a cloudy day. Once this white new growth turns pink (this takes only one or two days), no damage from the sun will occur.

It's important to do this before the new growth produces any new leaves. Prune each stem to remove that portion damaged by the freezing and thawing of the winter's sun or by those stems damaged from wind-chill temperatures. Evidence of this damage shows itself as discolored stems (no longer green) or the pith of the stem is tan or brown.

You may need to cut the stems beneath the mulch or soil level. This severe pruning will not hurt your plant. If you should leave damaged canes (those with a tan or brown pith) they will have leaf out and some will have blooms. Others will not set buds, and most will not repeat blooms the remainder of the season because a blockage in the damaged stems will not allow the needed juices to produce new growth.

Spread evenly a dry fertilizer such as 10-10-10 (1/4 cup per plant) as distant as possible from the center of each plant (24 to 30 inches). The further roots reach out to get the food, the bigger and stronger the stems will become.

Once your plants have new growth with leaves, frost or freezes will kill these new purplish-red stems. Green leaves can tolerate temperatures down to 28 degrees without apparent damage. When weather forecasts indicate frosts or freezes you will need to cover your plants with cardboard containers until this danger is over. We lose our rose plants from too early spring growth when late spring freezes damage this foliage. There is not sufficient stored energy left in the plants to start over with a second growth.

The above procedure applies to hybrid tea, floribunda and grandiflora type roses. Climbers, shrubs and old garden roses are pruned after the first bloom cycle. Miniature roses may be cut back to a height of 6 to 8 inches, and the twiggy lateral stems removed.

If for some reason you did not cut back or prune you roses as suggested in step 2 and new growth has begun with stems and leaves 1 1/2 or more inches long, do not cut off this growth, as you will severely weaken if not kill this plant. Instead, wait to do your spring pruning as it is called after the first flush of blooms has opened and a second growth has begun. This usually occurs in our area the middle of June. What you remove from this plant are stems that have leaves that did not set buds (stems smaller than a pencil and damaged or dead stems that do not have that bright green appearance). Pruning cuts should be made close to the origin of that stem so that there is no stub remaining. This late pruning technique will produce more of these large basal stems from the base of the plant that we love to see.

We begin our spray program when the buds are pea-sized, which is usually early May. A fungicide and insecticide are applied according to the label directions as a preventative.