Climber help please!

Thanks wiseoldowl.
You may well be right. I shall leave it until November and get back to you!!

 

Hi,

In complete agreement about how lovely your garden looks-wish mine was like that.


I am currently pruning my climber-nowhere near as pretty as yours and a bit of a beast really-seagull-but I have a long horrible old brick wall to cover.

But I had an iceberg which I planted and then totally forgot about until I rediscovered it a year later behind a conifer I was lopping out. In addition to one single long stem bearing three miserable looking roses there was an equally long sucker growing up the other side. My learning about roses comes only from very old books I got from a house clearance and it advised me to dig the rose out cut the sucker off at the base, cut the rose down to 9inches and then replant it somewhere else in the garden covering the whole of the base and then training it as per diagrams (Properly this time basically). Notably it said I should do this as soon as I found the problem-which was in June 2005. I did as instructed, and it does seem to be okay now, and growing well-apart from the aphids which love it.

Other than the sucker, It looked a bit like yours-all legs and no hairdo so to speak.


I am not advising you to do something so drastic but do want to ask everyone else on this thread who has been so helpful-did I do wrong? At worst I possibly lost 2 yrs flowers, and at best, in the end, I am fingers crossed that this is sound horticulture. If I did wrong what should I do to ensure I don`t repeat the mistake should I find myself in this spot the next time.

Sorry for the waffle, and thanks for your patience in reading this post.

 

Thanks Wiseoldowl-this has been of immense help-and might I say relief. I honestly thought I had used some obsolete book which bore little relevance to todays more modern plants and broke my beautiful rose.

It is one of the ABC gardening series printed it says in 1957, I know that it isn`t that long ago in the grand scheme of things and was greatly helped by it at first-but as you say education and experience go hand in hand and I lack both-so you are definitely going on my "ask advice from" list. I just hope you don`t mind.


I am interested in learning about rose cultivation and wonder if you have any advice about where I can get information from. Any writers or gardeners I should read about and learn about?

 

i have a cluster pink rose growing over an archway. i have had to trim the top twice and think i cut the buds off how can i keep it tidy on top and when to prune . please help carolla 1

 

Hello Carolla,

Although there are many more knowledgable people on this particular subject, I would say spring-after the last frost, it can be very hard to guess that one for me here on the west pennines but it seems to average out around beginning of April here. As for keeping it tidy, I personally would just prune it back off the top of the arch then, how much very much depending on how vigorous the particular rose is.

I have a beast of a rose-seagull which just goes berserk during the growing season. It is to cover a 50 m long wall and I prune this one pretty much continuously back down to the the next leaf joint when it needs any deadheading.

It sounds lovely, any chance of pics?

 

Hi Carolla, when you prune depends a lot on where you are, as Claire says up north maybe as late as March or April, here on the south coast late January early February can be OK although occasionally if it is a mild winter I still have blooms in January so I delay until buds stop forming.

 

Dorsetmike and Woo - seems like there are quite a few on here growing a climber for the first time or having a problem or two.
This thread may run and run !! :D
Thanks to you both for all the advice on questions which sometimes may sound a tad simple to the experienced folk, it really is appreciated :thumb:

 

I have an Iceberg too. It got blackspot so I took off all the bad leaves and sprayed it and its growing back now. I would like it to cover a bit more of my garage but it doesn't grow that quick. Am I doing anything wrong? Its got seaweed and banana skins round it at the mo so that should keep it healthy.

 

Hi LMRR, it looks like it's got too many side shoots off the main branches so the main branches aren't getting much longer; leave it as it is for now but prune it back come February, mainly aiming to reduce the number of branches low down to 2 or 3 strong ones and trim the ends of those strong ones back by no more than one third. It does look as though you've sorted the black spot, want to have a go at mine? With the recent upset it's been ignored and is now rampant.

I'f you want I could call round nearer the time and suggest which branches to cut, I'm in Parkstone send me a PM if you need help with it.

 

Hi Little Miss,

I can`t get a clear shot of mine-too many things growing in front of it, but yours look a bit more bushy than mine.

I prune and tie it so that it has two main stems trained straight up with the side stems trained horizontally to either side. It does seem to look wider and taller than the one you show, but mine looks a bit more spare.


Please excuse the dodgy drawing


but i have tried to get it like this



I have deliberately pointed the tips of the side shoots downwards-I seem to remember reading in my ABC roses that it encourages the side shoots up wards.

I am only a keen student with roses, I think to me (and if Woo or Mike could correct me if wrong) it looks like it needs to be more srictly trained outwards.

 

Thanks Dorset Mike and lollipop. I'll give it a good prune in Feb and I'll hold u to that Mike lol. I could come round and help u sort it Mike if its anything like mine was there won't be much left after removing the bad leaves.

 

Just googled the guinea rose-what a colour!