climbing rose help

Hi all
We are as new to the site as we are to gardening!
At the ripe old age of 43 we have just moved in to a new house and inherited our first ever garden of sorts. We have suprisingly enjoyed our introduction to gardening and are very proud of our results, bearing in mind we are total beginners.
We have even had our first cucumbers and courgettes from our greenhouse. stupid it may seem but we are proud. of them.
We have rather a lot of fencing so have set a variety of plants along it, our newest arrival is a Climbing rose. Question is how and when do you prune climbing roses? It flowers in summer / autumn and is called compasion.

cheers for any help

 

Hello Daznjo and welcome to Gardeners' Corner. You're entitled to be proud of your efforts - well done!

Unfortunately our rose expert - Wiseoldowl - is away at the moment but maybe I can give you a few tips. First of all, you've chosen a great rose. It's the one Wiseoldowl would probably have recommended! It's a nice healthy plant which flowers for a long time and is strongly scented.

You don't have to worry about pruning your climbing rose for a while yet. It'll be two or three seasons before it needs doing. Your main task for the next couple of years will be to train it so that it has the best possible shape and shows off its flowers to best advantage. Climbing roses produce canes which have a natural inclination to grow bolt upright and then produce a pom-pom of leaves and flowers at the top. If you let a rose grow like this for too long, you will mostly end up looking at ugly bare stems, so it's best to get things off to a good start.

You'll need to tie in the stems of your rose as it grows and you'll need a framework which will allow you to do this. A sturdy trellis would do - not a flimsy one, which will disintegrate in no time - or you can put a series of strong horizontal wires along your fence; I did this and it has worked very well. (Actually, I got long-suffering OH to do it, but we'll let that pass.)

Basically, you need to tie in the stems horizontally, starting low on your trellis/wires,so that your rose covers the fence instead of racing to the top of it. Once you've got a nice, even framework,which takes a few seasons, its a question of thinning out crossing stems, taking out old and dead wood and generally keeping things neat. These articles will give you some idea:-

How To Train Climbing Roses, Training Climbing Roses, Training Roses

Pruning Climbing Roses, How To Prune Climbing Roses

However, since you're obviously enjoying your garden, I suggest you invest in some good gardening books which will tell you all you need to know. The RHS Encyclopaedia of Gardening is excellent.

Happy gardening!

 

Hi Clara Lou (deputy WOO)
On a related theme.
I have an Iceberg Climber. I have a dislike of Roses (due to physical harm) but OH has other ideas.

Because of blood loss the rose has been left to its own devices and again thid year is prolific in its flowering. Unfortunately they now start at about 6' and go upwards.

Can I cut it back severely and start to train it, or have I missed the boat?

 

Hello gcc

I'm a rather inadequate deputy Woo, I'm afraid, but I have had some success in previous gardens with at least semi-taming badly behaved roses. Get ready for more blood loss, :D, because as you've already discovered, once a rose forms those woody inflexible stems which are clothed in nothing but flailing knives, there's nothing much you can do except get rid of them. You need to encourage the plant to produce new, whippy stems which you can train properly. To do this, you can cut back some of the old stems severely, but you shouldn't get rid of them all at once or you might finish your rose off completely. It's best to spread the work over several seasons. Having said all this, I have on occasion got so completely fed with my roses that I've taken the tree loppers to them and cut them to the ground. Generally speaking, they have survived. I have a Gloire de Dijon growing by my front door which had to be more or less obliterated so that the painters could get to the house. It is now back, with attitude!

 

Cut them down or better yet you transfer it to a tree or something that so it will climb else where.:WINK1:

 

No real problems with climbing roses and pruning them as long as you decide what to do about the 'rose hips' which some people like to leave for the birds. Normally speaking I cut back the climbers after they have finished flowering as I always hope that they may flower again, sadly more often than no they refuse to do so.

You should cut out the older stems after a couple of years to encourage new growth - I have never cut a climber back to the ground - normally take off a third to a quarter together with cutting back the weaker side shoots.

 

I severely cut back a climbing rose (warm welcome) which I really thought had died off but decided to leave it just in case. Well, it did come back and has buds on it. I know it's daft but I got all excited about it

Sally