In Ohio after my Butterfly bushes & Hybrid Teas "died" for the season.
I went out with my pruner and started cutting my Butterfly bushes back
to about a foot which I believe is OK since I did it the year before
with excellent results ("new" full bush came from the ground); however
without thinking "doing the research first" I went to my (4) hybrid
teas and did the same (chop, chop, chop)....so now there is "only" 1
foot canes coming from the plant....instead of the normal summer time
4-5 foot canes. (Unlike the butterfly bushes, this was the first season
for the tea roses; therefore I don't have a reference if I should have
pruned).
Was I supposed to have left the canes alone (the flowers grow from
these canes); or are they like the butterfly bush (new canes will raise
from the ground).

"dohc46" <dohc46 [at] direcway.com> wrote in message
news:1134834204.555492.169880 [at] f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> In Ohio after my Butterfly bushes & Hybrid Teas "died" for the season.
> I went out with my pruner and started cutting my Butterfly bushes back
> to about a foot which I believe is OK since I did it the year before
> with excellent results ("new" full bush came from the ground);

I have two Butterfly bushes, one large, one smallish.
I've not pruned them but probably should. Thanks for
the reminder. :)

however
> without thinking "doing the research first" I went to my (4) hybrid
> teas and did the same (chop, chop, chop)....so now there is "only" 1
> foot canes coming from the plant....instead of the normal summer time
> 4-5 foot canes. (Unlike the butterfly bushes, this was the first season
> for the tea roses; therefore I don't have a reference if I should have
> pruned).

There is a real difference between "hybrid tea" and
"tea" roses. If you have Hybrid Teas, refer to them
as such, and don't shorten it to Tea, because that's
a different rose!

There are different schools of thought about
pruning. I tend to do more moderate pruning
but cutting back as far as you did is another
method. I would recommend reading up on
pruning at the ARS site www.ars.org . Many
of the article writers are from your general
area.

There are also pruning variations due to the kind
of rose, for example, climber vs bush rose,
modern vs old garden rose. It would be a
good idea to read up on roses, either online
or some beginning book like Ortho's "All
About Roses".

> Was I supposed to have left the canes alone (the flowers grow from
> these canes); or are they like the butterfly bush (new canes will raise
> from the ground).

Are your roses grafted or on their own roots?
If grafted, you shouldn't be pruning *below*
the bud union since that kills the desired rose.
It sounds like you pruned above the bud union
so you should be ok. New canes will come
from the top of the bud union. If canes are
growing from below the bud union, they should
be pruned at their base.

Gail
near San Antonio TX Zone 8