The roses are best off to not be pruned prior to winter. Remove dead flowers, but let some go into hips to show that they need to slow down for winter. Then, in early spring or late winter, where you see little nubs starting, prune the roses then. The rationale behind this is that if you prune now, and then winter hits, and a freeze happens, it may kill off the end of the stem. If you have pruned back, you can endanger the rose if you prune too close and the pruned end gets frozen.
Come spring, you will be able to trim back all the killed ends, and tidy it up for new growth.
For roses which are in the wrong space......wait until it goes totally dormant for fall. The reason to not move it now is it will need those feeder roots to support it now, and moving it now will jeopardize those. Once it is dormant, move it to where you want it to be. Even tho it is in the soil, and you don't see anything on top, the new roots will be growing in with the winter rains. Do not fertilize it now. You want it to be forming roots, and fertilizer will activate it to grow on top as well as under the ground. You may have to prune some of the stray ends off, but don't do a full prune until spring.
In my experience, it is harder on the plant to move it in spring when it needs to grow above ground, and forming all its roots below ground. Easier on the plant to do the below work in winter and then come spring it is ready to do its above growing.
Come spring, do your pruning, and also give it a good chemical fertilizer. Now, your area may be different, but usually until the soil warms, using organics doesn't have the goodies in the soil which can help the plants to absorb it. So, a chemical fertilizer is useful until the ground warms for spring. [I am in western Washington and our growing times are very different from yours in Texas, but the basics still apply.] |