Climbing roses for your garden
A climbing rose will add height and elegance to any outdoor space. With so many different bloom types, sizes, and colours, you can easily cover fences or walls. They turn unsightly areas within your garden into something spectacular. Grow over obelisks and arches or create a climbing rose trellis to make magnificent central displays.
Climbing roses are perfect for smaller spaces. As they grow vertically, you can add them to the back of a small border of a large pot. They will gracefully grow up and cover the area with lovely blossoms.
Many climbing and pillar roses will repeat blooms so that you can enjoy beautiful blooms throughout the year. As some varieties can grow up to 15 feet, it is important to consider this when choosing the ideal climbing rose for your garden.
Unique qualities of climbing roses
Many climbing roses have overly large flowers on leggy stems because of their old-fashioned Hybrid Tea rose origins. Their pliable stems are ideal for winding around a pillar to slow sap and produce more flowers. Do this before the new growth hardens, usually in October and November.
Try ‘New Dawn’ (technically a repeat-flowering Rambler) for a smaller, non-leggy climber. Healthy, with perfectly formed silver-pink flowers and neat, healthy foliage.
Another great option is 'Constance Spry'. It has deep pink cabbage-like blooms up to 5 cm in diameter. Incredibly robust, with a delicate myrrh fragrance, it will flower throughout summer.
Slow sap flow to encourage flowering
The easiest way to encourage flowering is to slow the sap. You can do this in several ways. Firstly by winding the stems around a trellis. The change of direction will decrease the flow.
Another way is to defy gravity by pulling rose stems downwards in arches and pergolas. Or loop ramblers along the fence to produce arching shapes like a looper caterpillar in motion.
Repeat Flowering Rambling Roses
There are some repeat flowering rambling roses, but they tend to be shorter and less vigorous. ‘Phyllis Bide’ bears small salmon-pink flowers, but she’s thorny so position her carefully away from paths.
Less thorny and with more apricot than pink flowers is the lovely 'Ghislaine de Féligonde'. A rose with glossy foliage that people should grow more widely. You can also grow this small rambler as a shrub, tolerating a north-facing position.
For vigorous, north-facing climber, plant the versatile Noisette rose 'Madame Alfred Carrière'. Grow it anywhere and it's in many rose buffs ‘Top Ten’. The foliage is shiny and healthy, the easily-trained stems are smooth and thornless. Finally, the blush-white roses begin in June and linger on towards Christmas.
How to prune climbing roses
Rose pruning ensures vigorous growth and that they flower well each year. If left, climbing roses can become a tangled mess of branches with few flowers. Follow these routine steps to help your climbing rose plant flourish:
1. Firstly, remove any dead, diseased or dying branches
2. Tie in new shoots and then fill supports and tidy up climbing rose bushes
3. Prune back to just above a bud which looks like its growth will be directed outward
4. Prune any side-shoots by about ? of their original length
5. Once the above steps are done and you're left with healthy and neat branches, simply tie back into the support
When to cut back climbing roses
Prune climbing and rambling roses at different times of the year. Below are general guidelines. For your specific rose, head to its page on our website to see more specific details.
Routinely prune climbing roses between December and February. Tie in any long shoots during autumn to prevent wind damage. For larger renovations of bigger climbers between late autumn and late winter.
Prune rambling roses in late summer after their show of flowers. To renovate them do this between late autumn and winter.
