bud-pinching

When a Floribunda forms a bloom “spike” or “candelabra” – it is setting many little blooms on one stem. To prune Floribundas for quality of bloom, rather than the maximum number of blooms, pinch out the center, fat bud so the side buds have a better chance at developing at the same time. This encourages a big rounded mass of blossoms – a “spray.” Floribundas like to do this so it is relatively easy to persuade them to flower in this manner. Once some of the blooms begin to fade, you can just cut out the few that are dying and let the spray continue to develop blooms. Once the entire spray is spent, or most of the individually blooms are finished, cut off the entire spray.