Climbing Rose Bushes
How To Grow Climbing RosesClimbing rose bushes and climbing rose varieties, do not actually climb like vines do. Climbing roses don't attach themselves to whatever they come in contact with like ivy or grape vines do. They put out long and arching. vigorous canes instead. If you don't train these canes, they will form a huge, sprawling shrub. So in order to get them to climb, you have to tie them to some sort of support, such as a wall, arbor, fence, trellis or post. The best way to tie roses to a support is by using green stretchable tape sold in any garden center or nursery. The most common types of climbing roses are the climbing offshots, or sports, of hybrid teas and large flowered climbers, which bloom repeatedly all season long.
Picture of Eden Climbing RoseThe picture shows the 'Eden' climber beautifully and properlytrained over the doorway of this house. This is a great example of a climbing rose bush which has been trained correctly, and therefore creates a beautiful garden display.
Regarding pruning, after planting, it's best to leave these climbers alone for two or three years, to give them
time to grow and develope long, sturdy canes. Just keep them within bounds and cut off any dead or damaged stems.
Tie them to the support to keep them in bounds.
After you bend these structural canes horizontally, or criss-crossed for arbors, and tie them to the support, new flowering shoots develops and sprouts along their lenght. These flowering shoots, or lateral shoots, will produce all the flowers on the climbing roses.
During dormancy, late winter or early spring, you should cut back these shoots to about 2-3 inches, no matter
how long they are, above the structural canes.
When you need these new canes, simply let them grow, rather than pruning them, as you should have been doing
since you selected your structural canes after the first two or three growing years.
Picture of Lady Banks Yellow Climbing RoseAfter the second or third year you will begin to really appreciate and have fun with your climber. This is when the flower show begins. All your careful training and rose care will reward you with a stunning garden display that will be the highlight of your garden.
You should think of your climber as having two body parts: the main structural canes, and the flowering shoots that grow from the main canes. Your goal for pruning is to select the best and sturdiest canes and tie them
to the support in some evenly spaced manner, preferably as horizontally as you can. For arbors, you should
start criss-crossing the canes, tying them in place, starting at the bottom of the arbor. When using an arbor
with roses, always plant two roses, one for each side, that will meet and overlap each other at the top of
the arbor.
Picture of Climbing Joseph Coats RoseCriss-crossing climbing rose bushes at the bottom going all the way up, will result in flowers from top to bottom, giving you a stunningly beautiful rose covered arbor. If you don't, you will mostly end up with flowers at the top and bare 'legs' at the bottom and sides, and not a very beautiful arbor.
The number of canes you choose depends on the size of your support and the age of the plant.
The rules for climbing rose bushes that bloom only ONCE in spring are bit different. You must wait until AFTER they bloom to prune the flowering lateral canes back to about 2-4 inches. You should also remove more of the older structural canes and replace them with new ones. These new canes produce most of next season's blooms. So if you prune these ONCE bloomers in the spring, you will not have any flowers that season, as they only bloom on last years growth.
Before leaving, be sure to browse the hundreds of pages filled with photographs of beautiful flower beds
with roses. You'll find them all listed at the bottom of my home page
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