"tazmainiandevil" wrote in
message ...

helping these guys. However, there are several roses, and two grape
vines that I am wary of pruning.

What I need to know is, how hard should I go with the basic old roses,
back to just 4 to 5 canes? One of the roses has stunning white flowers,
but it is very spindly and prone to disease, do I give up, or can I
prune health into it? Another is a climber with two strong canes coming
from the ground, and I am not sure how to approach cutting back the
spindly/strong canes coming from the main stems. Or maybe I should take
it back to the ground? It seems pretty well established.

For the rose that isn't a climber, you first need to know if it is say a
hybrid tea of a heritage/old fashioned rose. If it's a hybrid tea you can
effectively chop it hard right back to its shins but if its and old
fashioned about a third off with some judicious canes to the ground in the
first year.

Climbers are pruned after flowering but for the weak spindly stuff you won't
do much harm by chopping them now. In fact whatever you do with the roses
you should have few problems as roses tend to be as tough as old boots.

The old grape vine is really straggly and it's hard to tell what's alive
and what's not. I unburied it last year from brambles and strung it up
on a trellis made of tree prunings and it fruited, so it's obviously got
some go in it. Again, I am really unsure as to how hard to prune the
vine, and how to know where to cut. Would I be better off waiting until
spring when I can see shoots to guide me?

No, prune it now, but read up on it first. If you can have a good look at
it and see how it was trained in the early stages of its life then that will
be a help to you but if you can see no evidence of training then you can
make up your own mind as there are several ways of training. Vines too are
tough.

Where abouts in the world are you? You name makes me think perhaps Oz, but
the use of gardenbanter makes me think of the UK.