I've had a response from Peter Beales @Fire Not sure it really explains much but they did kindly reply-
Dear Peter
Thank-you for your e-mail regarding rose sizes. The rose sizes are a
rough guide of what they may achieve and obviously we grow
some varieties that are grown at other growers so some heights are the
ones they have told us. The heights we specify are what we believe they
may achieve in good growing conditions but this may differ with
different soil types, weather conditions feeding
and pruning regimes.
We
can see from your e-mail your roses are exceeding the stated heights
so you have very good growing conditions and the roses seem
happy.
Hope this helps
Kind Regards
Melanie Lemon
Rose Advisor
Peter Beales Roses Ltd
Telephone: +44 (0)1953 454707
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
Climber or shrub, it's more a decription of how you choose to grow them. New users in any jargon have difficulties.
As noted upthread, the companies are selling some roses of the same genetics as two different plants with different maximum heights given. That is not a question of newbie confusion.
The rose sizes are a
rough guide of what they may achieve and obviously we grow
some varieties that are grown at other growers so some heights are the
ones they have told us. The heights we specify are what we believe they
may achieve in good growing conditions but this may differ with
different soil types, weather conditions feeding
and pruning regimes.
Sometimes the climbing version (like "climbing iceberg") is a sport of the original that someone noticed had a taller/ longer-caned habit than the main plant and propagated from it. Maybe that change in habit happens often.
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
I couldn’t explain better or more succinctly than Marlorena but here’s a (long) stab..
I don’t think there is a specific gene that makes a shrub or a climber, it’s more a matter of ancestral breeding lines, climate, growing conditions and how you prune them.
Some DAs like Gertrude Jekyll, Graham Thomas, can be grown as either, but are exactly the same rose. They’re just listed under two categories to capture more sales. Those sent as ‘climbers’ are not pruned as short and put on a bamboo support. That same specimen could theoretically have been pruned shorter and sent out as a ‘shrub’.
Bédé is correct it’s how you grow them. Prune as a shrub or give it a structure to climb, leaving the main canes long and only pruning back the lateral flowering shoots.
DA roses are often a cross between large old shrub roses and/or species roses that naturally scramble through and up hedgerows and trees, and more modern cultivars which themselves have mixed heritage. So the ability to grow big or climb is lurking somewhere in the genes and is more dominant in some cultivars.
Climate and conditions play an important part - in warmer climates or good soil some can grow many times stated size and/or happily express lurking climbing tendencies.
When a single specimen of a named variety of shrub throws out long climbing canes, cuttings are taken from those mutant climbing canes and propagated separately. This is a ‘climbing sport’. The new version has a distinct identity, is given the suffix ‘Clg.’ and registered with a different breeder’s code. Lady Hillingdon is a good example. I have the old shrub version, although the climbing sport is more popular.
If you treat a climbing sport as a shrub by constantly cutting down the main canes it can give up and ‘revert’ to it’s original shrub form. Roses that were classified as climbers from the start because that’s all they ever wanted to do don’t ‘revert’ as such but some take years to grow back climbing canes from the base.
Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
No, Fire, there is no climbing sport of Gertie, it has the same breeders code, there are not two versions it’s just misleading marketing by DA. There are official climbing sports of other roses such as Lady H Clg and Iceberg Clg.
Pete, your Moonlight is an excellent example of a stated size-busting rose, you must have very good soil 😆
Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
The soil in that part of my garden has never been amended in any way, never watered in drought, but it is Essex clay. I planted Moonlight soon after I moved here along with weigela, cotinus, euonymus and others - in my enthusiasm they were all planted too close together and the crown of the Moonlight is now completely inaccessible as are all the canes growing from it - so it just does its own thing. It's just as big big next door as it is in my garden.
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
I've done bugger all for my Moonlight and it shot away in the first year to eight foot. I too think that it has been mislabelled. But it would be interesting to hear from others who have it and if Moonlight has stayed "compact".
Posts
Not sure it really explains much but they did kindly reply-
Dear Peter
Thank-you for your e-mail regarding rose sizes. The rose sizes are a rough guide of what they may achieve and obviously we grow some varieties that are grown at other growers so some heights are the ones they have told us. The heights we specify are what we believe they may achieve in good growing conditions but this may differ with different soil types, weather conditions feeding and pruning regimes.
We can see from your e-mail your roses are exceeding the stated heights so you have very good growing conditions and the roses seem happy.
Hope this helps
Kind Regards
Melanie Lemon
Rose Advisor
Peter Beales Roses Ltd
Telephone: +44 (0)1953 454707
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
As noted upthread, the companies are selling some roses of the same genetics as two different plants with different maximum heights given. That is not a question of newbie confusion.
That looks just like a cut and paste job.
I don’t think there is a specific gene that makes a shrub or a climber, it’s more a matter of ancestral breeding lines, climate, growing conditions and how you prune them.
Some DAs like Gertrude Jekyll, Graham Thomas, can be grown as either, but are exactly the same rose. They’re just listed under two categories to capture more sales. Those sent as ‘climbers’ are not pruned as short and put on a bamboo support. That same specimen could theoretically have been pruned shorter and sent out as a ‘shrub’.
Bédé is correct it’s how you grow them. Prune as a shrub or give it a structure to climb, leaving the main canes long and only pruning back the lateral flowering shoots.
DA roses are often a cross between large old shrub roses and/or species roses that naturally scramble through and up hedgerows and trees, and more modern cultivars which themselves have mixed heritage. So the ability to grow big or climb is lurking somewhere in the genes and is more dominant in some cultivars.
When a single specimen of a named variety of shrub throws out long climbing canes, cuttings are taken from those mutant climbing canes and propagated separately. This is a ‘climbing sport’. The new version has a distinct identity, is given the suffix ‘Clg.’ and registered with a different breeder’s code. Lady Hillingdon is a good example. I have the old shrub version, although the climbing sport is more popular.
If you treat a climbing sport as a shrub by constantly cutting down the main canes it can give up and ‘revert’ to it’s original shrub form. Roses that were classified as climbers from the start because that’s all they ever wanted to do don’t ‘revert’ as such but some take years to grow back climbing canes from the base.
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
Pete, your Moonlight is an excellent example of a stated size-busting rose, you must have very good soil 😆
I planted Moonlight soon after I moved here along with weigela, cotinus, euonymus and others - in my enthusiasm they were all planted too close together and the crown of the Moonlight is now completely inaccessible as are all the canes growing from it - so it just does its own thing.
It's just as big big next door as it is in my garden.
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.