scraggly roses

[Keren]

We recently bought a house with 5-6 rose bushes that are really scraggly and alot of dead wood. Seemed to have been neglected for several years. They have been blooming the past few weeks tho and we'd like to help them thrive.

Everything I have read has said to prune/cut bank Winter (February)

Can we cut them back now and/or is there anything we can do to them now to make them more healthy and better looking?

While I think they are getting good light where they are we are considering moving them to another area of our garden. Can we move them now or should we wait.

Thank you - any advice would be appreciated!

[sandih]

While it's better to do more severe pruning in the winter you can always remove the dead wood now a do light pruning. Also, I would wait to dig them up in the fall/winter as well. We are still likely going to have more hot weather and if the roses are unhealthy now, transplanting them will not help the situation.

I would clean out the dea wood, lightly prune and give it a goo feeding with Bioform. Be sure there's no irrigation system that sprays water on the leaves, since you should always water at the base of a rose.

Have fun, nursing them back.