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
The quintessential rosarians at the below URL:
Roses often grow better with proper pruning. Cutting back some of the older canes will force new growth. Pruning should not be done 2-3 months prior the first frost date. Work in a bag of composted cow manure and feed with fish emulsion. Roses needs lots of TLC.
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
See my . Be sure to read the part after "Some special considerations apply to climbing roses."
Many thanks for the input here. Especially Emilie for spelling it all out for me. :)
-Fleemo
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