Pruning Climbing Roses
The flowers of climbing roses appear at the tips of the shoots. So, if you
let the shoots grow straight up you will only get flowers right at the top
of them with the rest left bare. The trick is to encourage the main shoots
to grow horizontally (fan them on a wall or twist them around an arch).
This encourages small side shoots to grow from the main shoots and each one
of these will produce flowers.
What do you do in the Spring?
If your rose is one of the vigorous ones that flowers just once (June-July)
all you do is train your main shoots horizontally and trim each side shoot
to about 3 in long. After a few years you can start removing some of the
older main shoots (cut down to about 6-8in from the ground) and replace them
with new shoots.
If your rose is a more modern repeat flowering variety simply remove about
25% of the main shoots each year (cut down to 6-8in from the ground) to
encourage new growth.
What next?
Feed and mulch immediately after pruning. Click here for more details.
What do you do in the summer?
Keep tying in the new growth, remembering to train the main shoots
horizontally to encourage side shoots to grow.
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