Climbing Roses for Arch

gerrard.kate · January 2021

Morning everyone,

My husband has bought me a beautiful arch for my birthday to go over the main garden path and grow roses over.

I have a traditional cottage style garden. I’d love some recommendations for light pink roses to grow over the arch (I’m less bothered about scent, I’d mainly interested in flowers) and any other tips on growing roses for arches.

Thank you!

Busy-Lizzie · January 2021

My daughter gave me "The Eden Rose" (Pierre de Ronsard in French). It was in a pot, but now I've moved house it will be going on an arch. Really pretty pink and cream, but no scent. Only snag I found was that the flowers don't like heavy rain. It may be a bit bushy for an arch, but I don't know where else to plant it.

My other daughter had "The Generous Gardener" on her arch, pale pink.

gerrard.kate · January 2021

Thanks so much! I’ve heard mixed things on GG - it looks stunning, but some say not flexible enough for an arch. Good to know it worked for your daughter. I’ll check out Eden Rose too, thanks.

Rubytoo · January 2021

We have Little Rambler here, tiny pink double flowers in clusters. Don't be fooled by the rambler in its name. It repeat flowers well.
And although scents can be subjective, I think it smells a nice, medium to strong sweet scent.
Fairly thorny but then a lot of roses are

Another pink is Mortimer Sackler. It seems to repeat well, but we have not had it long and it is temporarily in a pot.
The stems are a nice red, which I think looks nice with the soft pink flower.
And as a bonus it has barely any thorns. So good for an arch.
Has a lovely strong scent.

Edited to say it (Mortimer) is described as a shrub rose that can be grown as a short climber, in case there is any confusion.

gerrard.kate · January 2021

Little Rambler looks gorgeous! The flowers look almost white though when I’ve looked online, do they fade to white for you?

Rubytoo · January 2021

They do fade to a very pale pink. They are in quite big clusters although the individual flowers themselves are small so the overall effect looks pink mostly for quite a while.
Hope that makes sense.

It will also depend on the position. The brighter the sun the sooner they fade, but in a shaded position or parts of the plant being in shade on the arch they would fade a bit more slowly I guess.
Ours is in a fairly bright south facing position, to my eye the overall effect is soft pink for for the majority of the flowering periods. Though obviously less so at the end..