You must place your bare root plant straight into a bucket of water for 2 hours or more, after being delivered. The roots are tender and cannot be left to dry out.
Guelder Rose does not need much pruning or maintenance, being one of the very few plants that produce flowers and berries on previous year's growth. If you have a healthy plant, new stems will always grow each year- you will just need to give it a general trim to maintain its shape. Any pruning should be done near the end of Spring, removing dead, broken, or overcrowded branches. Up to one-third of the plant can be trimmed each year.
Please note: Even though trimming the plant will lead to a loss of berries the same year, there will be a much stronger, healthier yield of berries the following year.
Hard pruning will need to be done to overgrown/old plants, and must be done in the late Autumn months, before Winter.