Climbing roses

stuarta99 · 27 January

Hi all,

Hopefully I'm getting better with cutting my roses back but I'm just curious if I should be cutting back the main cane on my schoolgirl climber as nothing seems to be coming out from it, only the bottom although hard to see in the picture.

stuarta99 · 27 January

My iceberg one seems ok but maybe some bits might need chopping off

Busy-Lizzie · 27 January

How old is the Schoolgirl? Some of those stems look dead where the orange tape is. That tape should have been removed when it was planted. Why has a new shoot been cut off? That might have been a new framework cane. Spreading the canes out sideways encourages new shoots.

I think you need someone more expert than me to tell you what to do about that one long cane. Maybe @Nollie or @Marlorena could advise. However, I can say that roses don't like being mulched with slate or stones. They like compost or rotted manure and they like rose food in March and after the first flowering. That will be difficult to do with all that slate there.

I wouldn't cut anymore off the Iceberg. I think the side shoots have been cut a bit too short already.

stuarta99 · 28 January

Sorry shoot cut off where? I do want to put them sideways and tried last year when I cut it back and was going to try again this year.

I know it's been mentioned about the slate before and I keep meaning to do sort it but in the summer they don't seem to care and flourish.

Busy-Lizzie · 28 January

In the 2nd photo bottom right there is a cut off green shoot.

stuarta99 · 28 January

Ah ok yep. Just thought the theory was and told before just to cut them back short. My neighbour goes even shorter

Busy-Lizzie · 28 January

It depends on what sort of rose and what sort of shoot. The one I was mentioning looks like one coming from the bottom of the rose which could have been trained to be a new long cane with flower bearing sideshoots growing off it. If you cut off all the canes that grow from the bottom your climbing rose will never have a chance to be a climber.

A hybrid tea rose isn't a climber and can be pruned hard. A floribunda is pruned less hard. A shrub can be tidied up and have the top third cut off.

Climbers have their long canes from the bottom trained to the support and the side shoots pruned to between 2 and 4 buds.

stuarta99 · 28 January

Damn that's what I struggle to understand one what a bud looks like. Oh well guess I'm not going to get anything up from that shoot now. Although I'm sure I did the same last year and they were ok

Emptyheadtime · 28 January

I think iceberg can be grown as either a shrub or climber, depending on how you prune it. It will flower just fine as a shrub if you prune it as such but if you want it to be a climber then let the canes grow as such and don’t prune it as hard as you have.

Climbing roses

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