Notes on Pruning Climbing Roses
With gardening, there is always more to learn. I’ve written previously about spring pruning roses, and I stand by the tips and techniques in that article for most roses.
But I’ve learned more about climbing roses and realize that I was cutting back most of them too harshly. They still grew well, but I didn’t get a great show of flowers (and flowers really are the point when you’re growing climbing roses!) At the urging of my garden mentor, I left them taller last year, and I had far more blooms than in previous years.
What I’ve Learned About Pruning Climbing Roses
What I’ve learned is that for climbing roses are that are healthy,* in the spring when they start budding, you should prune back anything thinner than a pencil (see the other article for a picture) to no more than 3 buds, but for any canes thicker than a pencil, leave them with as much height as you’d like. In some cases that may be three or four feet, in other cases, for a vigorous rose with good thick canes, it could be six or even eight feet.
The rose I tested this on was Rosa ‘Constance Spry’, an English rose (aka David Austin rose).
This year when I prune I will leave the height on most of the canes, but I will prune back a few of the oldest canes (about 1/3 of the plant) quite hard. This will help the plant retain vigour, but will still leave a substantial number of canes to produce a good show of flowers.
*If the rose isn’t very vigorous, cut back harder, to two feet or less, to good, thick shoots, as it will promote growth. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but the more you constrain the plant by cutting it back the more it will burst forth with new growth.
My Rose’s have not bloomed for 2 years. Why?
Maybe you cut all the new buds off and you were left with bare branches ??
Are you fertilizing them each spring with good quality organic granular rose food? Those rapidly growing canes and luscious blossoms need nutrients in addition to skillful pruning, to jumpstart them into blooming.