One of my neighbors recommended that I cut my native roses back to the ground every year. Either in the spring or fall that it didn't matter which. Do you do that and if so when?
Should I cut back native roses?
We grow two kinds of native roses, Rosa setigera and Rosa palustris and we don't cut them back, only trim as needed to keep in shape.
Josephine.
If you cut them down, you won't get blooms as they blossom on second year and older wood. I would recommend just cutting out the dead wood and trimming where needed for pathways and such. Like old garden roses, the species roses need their old wood. I took this picture yesterday, R. palustris or swamp rose. Stan actually stood in 14 inches of water to get me the cutting that I started this from.
That is beautiful. You both have confirmed what I thought, only cut out the old wood.