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New climbing rose, advice needed

SuesynSuesyn Posts: 664
in Plants

Hi everyone, I hope that someone will be able to tell me what to do now Madame  Alfrede Carrierre has got to this stage. She was planted early autumn  bare rooted and as you can see has put on quite a bit of growth. I have been tying it in and fanning it out but I don't know what to do with bits that don't fit into the fan shape. RHS encyclopedia says not to prune a climbing rose at all for the first 2 years but I don't want it to get out of control before I even start. 
Should I leave well alone or trim it back a little. So far hasn't flowered but there are two buds on it. 
Advice would be appreciated, thank you. 

Posts

  • MarlorenaMarlorena Posts: 8,705
    It's doing really well for you, you have trained it perfectly and what a lovely wall to have it on there.. I hope it's a fairly high wall and this rose is capable of considerable height and for some of us, [people's experience can be different here], but it likes to grow rather a lot before it decides it's ready to enter a regular bloom cycle... although as I say some get blooms in the first year, but I never did..

    It's not a rose for rigid control, so if that was mine now, I wouldn't be doing any more with it other than stabilising any wayward canes that might otherwise be flopping around... by tying them back to the nearest support, be it wire or discreetly tied to another cane.. 

    However, it's up to you what you do, it's your rose and only you know what you are capable of dealing with and to what height you can manage... if height is a problem then I would leave it get to wherever I could manage without difficulty and start stopping it, but it's not a rose to disappoint in my experience..

    A lovely job so far...  well done to you !..
    East Anglia, England
  • SuesynSuesyn Posts: 664
    Thank you for your reply Marlorena. At what stage should I shorten the sideshoots then? Should I leave it until after its second summer or will deadheading be enough it keep it in check. I understand that this is an untidy rose but as we only have this little strip between the house and the lane I don't want it to impede the passing traffic  (mostly 4 legged). Once it gets above the ground floor windows it can do it's own thing although I will try to train it to go round the corner where the gable end wall has the drive up to the base and not enough room to plant in. You may have noticed in the first picture that my OH put wooden blocks on the corner to hold the wire away from the wall so the rose can go round, with a little persuasion. You can see from this picture that it has started to go round already 
  • MarlorenaMarlorena Posts: 8,705
    Oh ok... how quaint is that?...  pretty little border, perhaps not the rose I would have chosen for your location there but we must battle on and do the best we can... you have a few wayward canes on the left to tie back, they are heading for the road...  and this is something you will be forever doing as new long canes come up from the base - you won't be able to go away on holiday for a month or the canes will be all over the road, but that's for another time... 

    ...at this stage, you've got some canes to work with going around the corner so I would have to judge whether I wanted to keep any more canes that spring up, I'm not averse to pruning them out if I've got enough, or if they are heading the wrong way and it's too awkward to deal with...I think I would keep all you have for the moment...    
    .. I prune side shoots after they've flowered, cutting hard back to the framework...along with any pruning I feel is needed to keep it manageable...   for now you're just going to have to go with it and keep training it around to your gable end wall... but you also want to retain some canes for the frontage next to the window, otherwise it will look odd I think..   it's a rose you want to show off when in full bloom...

    It'll look super next summer, I feel sure of that...  
    East Anglia, England
  • SuesynSuesyn Posts: 664
    Thanks for that, Marlorena. I have wires both over and under the window so hope it will cover most of the wall and maybe climb onto the porch roof. The front of the house faces north west so I thought that this one would be happier than other roses in that situation, also wanted pale colour and a scent. I have tried to put into a very restricted space plants that will offer something all year, so far it seems to be working, it certainly looks better than the concrete strip which was there before.
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