Climber help please!

@LMRR, sent you a PM.
A couple of my roses have lost nearly all their leaves so a rescue mission is overdue!!

 

I'll be there

 

Wow! we are all into climbing roses!
I am sorely tempted to chop mine back now, but shall try and resist until february - or is it November?
It now has a couple of new shoots trying to grow off the main branch and is looking very top heavy. Clearly i should have cared for it better when it was younger and it needs a drastic pruning!

 

Tie down growth throught the year as needed and prune off the finished flower heads around now. Personally I tend to also thin out some of the top growth around now and remove any dead wood, a proper prune and tying in around feb.

 

Yes Paul, some thinning now can work, especially any branches that are too close to other branches so that they rub against each other in the wind, or where you get a lot of smaller weak shoots remove any that are spoiling the shape you want; example on an archway shoots that want to go across the arch and maybe catch your arm as you walk through, some you can tie back but some always seem to want to go where you don't want them.

 

LMRR & I had a fun day hacking the black spot, we may have bitten off more than we can chew!! It's worse than I at first thought. The weather didn't help either, about 3 showers interrupted us so we concentrated on stripping the black spotted leaves, left the spraying for a dryer, less windy day.

 

Yes could be a while stripping the leaves off

 

Hi again!

Well I have pruned the rose - but am very tempted to cut the main stem back to promote more side shoots lower down. from where I am looking there is a stem about 4 ft long and quite thick.
Would it be a mistake to cut that back and effectively start again?

Thanks!

 

No I don`t think so and it certainly won`t do it any harm, but I think I would train that particular stem as horizontally as I could get it, the side shoots would then become the vertical shoots, but perhaps that`s a mistake-Woo will know for sure.

 

Woo, I knew I had a particular question and that you would knowthe answer.


I have seen somewhere someone who had a climber planted as a shrub and they took the long upright shoots and stuck the ends of them in the ground, the only thing I can say it particularly looked like was a bit spiderish. Why would they do that and what, if any, benefits are there?

 

Ah, I see, to get new roses, I thought it was something to do with the sap rising in spring or some such mystery. Never thought of that.

 

Hi and thanks!
But I am a little confused. The main shoot is really quite thick,rigid and old ( and long!) would it be ok to cut that?
as I see it at the moment, its still all growth at the top......