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Training vigorous climbing roses over a large arch - your experiences please

FireFire Posts: 19,096
edited September 2023 in Problem solving
I have a wide 3m+ arch - around 2.7m high. There are two vigorous roses on either side (four in total). All four roses are now well established and pretty happy. Now they are settled I want to cut them back this winter and re-train them (partly because of wounding, and for other reasons). Historically it has been hard to get the canes not to cross and wound each other. I tie them in, but they grow fast and there is a lot of biomass up there. Stiffnesss of cane is not a problem. The roses I have choosen are not very leafy types. 

I think that, although I like a wildy, less controlled style, the canes will have to be tied quite close to the arch so that I can deadhead and prune without a ladder. This will also reduce the amount of movement in the wind up there.

The blooms of the last four or five years have been wonderful. I'm glad I have planted what I have planted. They make for good cut flowers, the scents are lovely and the bees like them. They make for a good massed display. The size of the arch is good as we can walk under it with no problems of getting snagged. I want to make the plant design simpler and easier to manage. Complexity is interesting but currently too involved in this case, as I don't have staff. :D

I also have two other vigorous red climbers elsewhere that I am planning to cut to the ground and retrain also. I will pick a plan and be rigorous: keeping to a few main canes and trimming back laterals. I imagine this might mean more flowers on the reduced number of canes.

If you have successfully trained your roses over a large arch, I would like to hear how you have choosen to do it and maintain it. Do you choose two or three main canes and stick to that? Do you tie the canes in quite tight to the arch?


Thanks.





Posts

  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    I will overhaul the arches and update here with "before and after" pics.
  • punkdocpunkdoc Posts: 15,039
    Is there any difference between climbing / shrub roses and single / multi stem trees, identical genetically just grown differently?
    How can you lie there and think of England
    When you don't even know who's in the team

    S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    I don't really know much about trees. Growers seem to be able to choose how cultivate some types of trees - as multistem or single stem. I would think that some cultivars are more given to this choice than others and it's up to the plant buyers to decide how to train them.

    I would like to find out more about the hormonal habits of "woody climbers", as they all seem to work in similar ways re blooming -  clematis, roses, honeysuckle, jasmin, passion flower, virginia creeper, wisteria etc. Similarly to some espalier fruit trees, the "blooming hormone" will be distrubted along a stem, if grown horizontally, or rise to the top of the stem, if grown vertically.
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