In article , Vickie
Andersen wrote:

HI I am new to this group. Would someone please give me advise on how
to trim a climbing rose, or do they need triming?? I know you can
train them onto a fence or trellis, but do you actually cut them?
Also, last year I had trouble keeping my Tea roses blooming. I have 21
of them, and all of them did not bloom well the whole year. I tried
the Alfalfa pellets, but that did not seem to work. And my flowers did
not have any scent or if they did it was very faint. Is this a
fertilizer problem? Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Vickie
PS not to make anyone feel bad, but I am in sunny,northern California
just south of Redding.


Well Vickie, so many questions.

Climbing roses are just roses with long, sometimes supple canes -- to
the point that when the cane is trained and bent toward the horizonal,
new growth emerges straight upward from along the length (more or less)
of the trained cane. It can easily take 2 or even 3 years for a
climbing rose to reach sufficient size to start serious training.

Soooo, first step is do NOT prune your climbing rose until it is
growing really strongly and has a good number of nice long canes
growing from the bottom (basals). Second, once you get a nice long
cane, immediately start gently bending it where you want to go, tying
it to the support. You can bend a little on week 1, bend a little more
Week 2, a little more Week 3. Third, after you have trained your cane,
you should get new canes (called laterals) the grow more or less
vertical. These are the source of flowers. There's more, but a lot
depends on which climber you are growing. Do you know the name?

Next, when you say Tea roses, do you mean hybrid tea roses like Diana
Princess of Wales, Rosie O'Donnell, Olympiad? You have to be sure to
remove the spend flowers to prevent seed production (hips). Roses need
lots of sunlight and won't produce as well in shady conditions. Your
roses might need both more fertilizer and more water. It's pretty darn
hot up there in the middle of summer. A lot of roses shut down in high
heat. You might check some of the hot summer rose societies like
Phoenix or Tuscon and check out what roses are recommended there.
Here's the webpage of the Sacramento Area rose societies. Take a look
at their recommended list too:
http://www.sactorose.org/isac-recroses.htm

Last, I'm sorry to break the news, but...not all roses have good scent.
Whether your roses should have scent may depend on which roses they
are. Fragrance is a surprisinly changeable thing, best when there's
moisture and not too much heat or wind. Also, even some good smelling
roses need to be appreciated inside. Finally, all noses were not
created equal. Believe it or not, some people smell some rose scents
better than others.