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Climbing Rose
Has anybody else got this rose? I bought one 2 years ago and it struggled to establish but this year it's already had/got lots of blooms. The trouble is that the flower heads are so large, they look too big for their stems and droop down. I did know it was a large flowered - almost a hybrid tea rose type, but didn't realise just how big the blooms are. I'm trying to train it horizontally on wires, but suspect it may be better supported on trellis. It's on clay soil, on a slope, facing south-east and has two birch trees about two metres away from it, one in each direction- not ideal I know.
North East Somerset - Clay soil over limestone
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I had this rose in my last garden - magnificent flowers but as you say, very heavy - we grew it up the side of a garden seat so we could gaze up into them.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
...I've grown this sumptuous rose twice in the past... once by a front door, up some cheap but tall trellis..that thin stuff that opens out like a concertina effect...attached to the wall, so the flowers were looking down on us at the entrance door... which was nice...
...then I had it climbing over a wooden arch - a single pole type arch - as opposed to a rope swagger that you sometimes see - this was a good way to grow it as again the flowers all looked down on you...however, a bit out of reach for the scent...
...and it does have a gorgeous scent..no doubt.. one of the best I think... but it didn't repeat flower all that much after June..that was it's only drawback...
..training it across on wires I think is perhaps a little unsuitable as you are finding...not the way I've done it.. but you will have to persevere if there's no other option... I think I would try to salvage the situation by also putting some vertical wiring there too..so you get cross wires so to speak...which replicates square trellis...it might help...then train them up a bit....all trial and error with these things....best wishes..
It has quite stiff and rigid canes if I remember correctly, so not easy to train, and then that floppy flower stem.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Thanks for those tips folks. I'll try some vertical wires as well. It's actually on the garden wall outside our boundary, which was very bare and boring so I thought a big red rose which other people could enjoy would brighten the street up a bit. As you say, it's got a gorgeous scent, I just have to go outside to smell it!
I'm also trying to train our wisteria along the top of the wall from the other direction, but actually it might be a colour clash - the rose flowered earlier than I had expected.