Climbing Rose Care

Hi Lu,

What Karen has said is right on the money. Something that Dee once told me was that she takes her cue from the rose; if it was dead it was removed and if it was in the way it was removed... but apart from that it was pretty much just a clean up/dead head/etc and not a full on prune. I do this mostly as well. You've mentioned before that your climber is once flowering. Pruning it now could mean you might prune off all the new flowers because often the once flowerers do so on old wood. To prune a climber like that successfully, so that you still get flowers, you need to wait until after it has flowered then prune it how you want it and then leave it again until it has flowered next year etc. If it is a repeat flowering climber then you can prune lightly now but you can also not do anything and get equally good results. If it is newly planted don't touch it for a few years until it is very established. If you cut your rose back after it has flowered you have, as Karen said, the perfect pieces for cuttings. That is a stem that has just flowered. On another note... it also depends what state the rose is in now and how you ultimately want it to look too. If you want it trained flat against a wall then you could wait until it has flowered this season and then cut it back hard and then begin training it by pegging down the new shoots so they grow out horizontally (you'll get heaps of flowers this way). If you want it to grow up around a pillar then you can wind the new stems around the pillar as they lengthen. If you want to to grow up a tree you can choose the strongest leader to run up the tree and then let it go and do its thing... so I guess it depends how you want it to look and how it is growing now.

My hunch is this... your rose is 'Dr Huey'. 'Dr Huey' is a rose variety often used as an understock because it strikes really easily, has a strong root system and is very vigorous. Often what happens is the rose grafted onto it dies and the understock shoots producing these lovely dark burgundy coloured flowers. It's a really lovely rose in its own right and it is a vigorous climbing rose that can also be grown as a large shrub because it has a layering growth habit. I've seen the most amazing photos of this rose being grown over arches and pergolas covering them in a mass of lovely red/burgundy flowers. It is a once-flowering rose with non-rambler-like foliage... the foliage gets mildew very easily here in Tasmania and it does poorly on acidic soil preferring neutral to slightly alkaline soils. If it IS 'Dr Huey' you shouldn't prune it now. You should wait until it has flowered or not at all. If it IS 'Dr Huey' you will have no trouble striking a few plants but you will have trouble selling the plants because it is most often associated with being an understock. You can, however, strike as many as you want and then have a go at budding other roses onto it to increase your collection. This is a rewarding and relatively cheap way of increasing your collection, you can trade plants with your friends, and is pretty easy to do... even I can do it! So... that's my hunch. I photo would confirm it but I'd be prepared to put $5 on it