GardenBanter.co.uk - Climbing Rose Advice

On Mar 1, 10:44 am, wrote:
We have one climbing rose in the corner of the yard, and not being a
rose person, I'm not really sure how to care for it. It's grown quite
tall (about 9 or 10 feet) and most of the blooms occur on young stems
way above our head. Would cutting it back to four or five feet result
in new branches closer to "nose level"? It's already showing about a
foot of fresh, reddish growth at the top. Is it too late to prune at
this point?

Thanks.

-Fleemo

Hi Fleemo
First of all, no, you don't want to cut your climber down to 4 feet.
You won't
get many blooms that way. It's still a climber and whatever grows is
going
to want to go UP. So to get the most blooms on a climber, you need to
find
a way to get those tall canes into a horizontal position, as if they
were traveling
out along a fence. If the rose is already near a fence (in the corner
of the yard)
then it will be easy to grab those tips and gently bend the canes to
run along
the top of the fence. Secure them with something soft, like pieces of
old panty
hose, because the canes are used to going up and will want to return
back
that way. So you have to train them to go sideways...When a climber
goes
straight up the only blooms you get are from the buds at the tip:
terminal buds.
When you stretch it out then all the buds along that cane become
terminal
buds because they are now oriented as if they were on top (does that
make sense?)
If you dont have a fence then you will need to build some kind of
frame or wire
instead taht goes horizontally.

Now there is another way to get almost horizontal canes and they do
this in
England a lot; it's called pegging down. You bring the tips of the
canes all the
way to the ground. Where they touch, you pound in a peg or staple like
metal
thing and then tie the tip of the cane down to it. This makes a very
graceful shape
to the climber, It does take more space.

Pruning can be done now. Usually in the Sacto area they do it in Jan.
(up here we
usually aim for Jan thru Feb. but you still have time. The later you
wait the later
you will get flowers. If this is an old garden rose that blooms only
once a year,
then you need to wait until after it blooms, however.
You will not prune the long canes that come out of the ground:
Primaries (unless
there are too many of them and they are crowded, or if they are really
old and
"crusty"Then you remove those all the way down to the groung, leaving
several
healthy ones.)
What you prune are the secondary canes that come out of the
Primaries.
These are where the flower buds will come from.
Cut them back to about 3- 6 inches leaving about 3 nodes. If there are
no
secondary canes this year, then you don't cut until next year after
they grow out.
If you need more on this feel free to email me.

Emilie
NorCal