Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Pruning Some of My Climbers

We have been having sunny and fairly warm days  for the past two weeks and I have been busy pruning. This is one of my favorite garden tasks, despite an aching back and a sore right hand :).

Some roses left over after pruning: Rosette Delizy, Julia Child, Benny Lopez and some late season feverfew, penstemons and rose hips


I grow a few big climbing roses that have to be closely managed in my small garden. I have to make sure they all stay within their allotted space by pruning them fairly severely every winter. By severe pruning I do not mean cutting all their canes back, but rather removing all or almost all canes that have flowered and keeping only the youngest, current year's growth which will produce the most blooms next year. Climbing roses put out long canes from the base of the plant (called basals). They are the plant's main asset. By bending them as close to horizontal as possible, secondary canes are produced on these basals (called laterals). Each lateral should end in a flower providing lots of blooms along the basal cane, like this:

Lorraine Lee cl at the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden






Below are two Austin roses, Crown Princess Margareta and Golden Celebration, which I train as climbers side by side on two small arbors.


Of the two roses, Crown Princess Margareta is much better suited to this type of training. It has short flowering laterals that tightly cover the arbor with lots of blooms.



 Golden Celebration, on the other hand, has long thinnish laterals and looks messier.

Despite these differences in growth, I use the same pruning method for both of them. I leave all current year's basal canes that have not flowered yet (there is no lateral growth on them). The youngest canes are usually the most vigorous and should provide the most flowers next year. I do not cut them back unless they outgrow their allotted space.



I cut back all fresh-looking laterals on older canes.



I remove at ground level the oldest basal canes whose laterals look tired and bloomed out:

You can estimate the age of this cane by the number of cuts on the little laterals.
 I tie in all remaining basal canes as close to horizontal as possible to induce the production of flowering laterals.



This is a more or less standard method of pruning climbing roses. However, it does not have to be rigidly adhered to all the time in all cases. Below is a picture of Colette, another climber. I grow it against a fence and as you can see, it is not overly vigorous and has not given me many basal canes. While the standard pruning approach would be to cut back all laterals, I have decided to leave some of them (specifically the two canes going left off the basal cane going to the right). There is no reason why these two canes will not produce their own flowering laterals, thus giving me more blooms. My goal here was to keep all healthy vigorous canes (basal or lateral) that grow flat against the fence.


Still, the fence looked a bit bare, so I took some long canes from Mme Isaac Pereire growing to the right of Colette, and wove them through Colette's canes. In the picture below Mme Isaac Pereire's canes are the ones with leaves still on them. Rose-growing authorities say that roses should not have crossing canes, that they should be given enough room to enjoy adequate air circulation, and so on. I have broken these rules because the most important goal for me is to create beauty in the garden, and also to have some fun. I believe that there are very few rules that are immovably cast in stone.



I have spent several winters being afraid to make a fatal pruning mistake and kill a rose. By now I have made quite a few mistakes, but all my roses survived and continue blooming and growing very satisfactorily. In fact, I am surprised by how much abuse a rose can take. The worst thing that ever happened to a rose in my garden was about a year ago last February, when a huge tree fell square on top of my Zephirine Drouhin, a beautiful bourbon rose. All of its canes were either badly damaged or broken. I had to cut them all off right at the bud union, and the rose started the growing season with no wood at all. To my amazement, it grew much more vigorously than it ever did before. It gave me so many new canes that this past week I had to subject it to the most drastic pruning ever (with the exception of last year's of course). I left eight thickest canes fanned out nicely along a fence and am very much looking forward to its spring show.

The only valuable lesson I have learned about pruning is not to be afraid. Roses are resilient. They will forgive you.

Baron Giraud de l'Ain

44 comments:

  1. Masha, great post about pruning climbing roses! Your technique obviously works very well judging by the photos of 'Crown Princess Margareta' and 'Golden Celebration'. The photos that show them in bloom are breathtakingly beautiful. I finally have started to prune my roses, too, and have to get to my climbers soon ('Zephirine Drouhin' and 'Pierre de Ronsard'). I have one question: do you prune of the tip of a new basal cane by two or three inches? I think, I have read that somewhere and I am wondering if this will increase flower production on the laterals or why it is has been recommended. Any ideas?
    Christina

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  2. Your roses are beautiful! Great tutorial on the nature of climbers and how to prune them. I'm always a little afraid to prune and typically just cut out deadwood, so this information will be valuable when cutting back the Mermaid so that we can replace a fence post.

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  3. Christina, thank you. I think if you want your roses to be absolutely perfect, you might cut back the basals to where they are thick enough to produce vigorous laterals that are able to support heavy blooms. In other words, cut back to where they are the same thickness as a good-sized lateral. I wouldn't say it is required and I don't always bother - I haven't seen any disease or damage on mine from not being cut back...

    Sweetbay, thank you. You are lucky to be able to grow Mermaid, she is a big lady, and prickly too! Whatever you do to Mermaid it will survive no problem - she is a very vigorous rose, so don't stress!

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  4. Dear Masha, I am in awe of your climbing roses. Mine are not developing the lateral canes -- I don't know what I am doing wrong. A very informative posting. Wishing you a happy and healthy new year. P. x

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  5. Pam, thank you. Maybe bending the canes a little would help? This would be my first guess. A happy new year to you too.

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  6. Masha your roses are gorgeous! I love your choices and your Blog. I am linking to you as recommended reading from my Blog, Gardens Inspired.

    Thank you for the wonderful lessons - Happy New Year!

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  7. This is an interesting post, Masha ! I totally agree with you about the rules that can be broken. Here too the roses don't have much room but the result is an effect of luxuriance that I love.

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  8. hello Masha..Very good lesson for trimming the roses and the résult is beautiful. All theses photos are beautiful and i love rose Crown princess margareta". thank you for your visit for Mery Christmas, i wish you best wishes for the new year.
    Good day jocelyne

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  9. Bonjour,
    Je découvre ton blog, magnifique. Je recherche un rosier que je ne trouve pas en France, c'est "SUNNY JUNE" est-ce que tu connais ,
    Bonne année 2012
    Jean-Pierre

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  10. Bukiet na przywitanie oraz róże na dwóch altankach, to cudowny widok. Dzięki Tobie wiem , co robiłam źle w przycinaniu moich róż, dziękuję. Ręce miałeś z pewnością podrapane, po wycince gałęzi :-(. Pozdrawiam bardzo ciepło i życzę SZCZĘŚLIWEGO NOWEGO ROKU.

    A bouquet of roses to greet and two arbors, this wonderful view. Thanks to you I know what I did wrong in pruning my roses, thank you. The hands had certainly scratched after felling branches :-(. Yours very warm and I wish you HAPPY NEW YEAR.

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  11. A great tutorial for pruning and beautiful roses.

    FlowerLady

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  12. What a great lesson, and wonderful photos to accompany your directions! The advice that I have the most trouble making folks understand is that it's best NOT to shorten the canes on climbers ... if it's outgrowing its space, you shorten everything, right? Wrong!! If you and I keep hammering at this subject, perhaps one day more folks will get it.

    My, my, your Austins are lovely!

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  13. Awesome post on pruning climbers. Your Golden Celebration is magnificent!

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  14. Great post! Very informative. Love the picture of the two different roses on the arches. I think that's the vision most people have in their heads when they think of roses in their gardens - lovely! It does make me a bit less afraid to cut my roses knowing they will probably live through any of my mistakes!

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  15. thanks masha for the lovely information. And fantastic photo's ofcourse.
    gr. Marijke

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  16. Debra, thank you. I appreciate the privilege of being included into your blog and hope your readers will find my posts useful.

    Isabelle, thank you and I am glad you understand! Managing climbers in a tight space is a lot of work, but as you say, the rewards are well worth the effort.

    Jocelyne, thank you. I am glad to hear from you again. I hope your pruning is going well.

    Jean-Pierre, merci pour vos mots. J'ai trouve Sunny June ici:
    http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=2.6045. HelpMeFind est un tres bon resource pour rechercher des roses. Excusez-moi pour mon mauvais francais.

    Giga, thank you for your kind words and for the effort to put them in English. My hands are all scratched too :)

    FlowerLady, thank you. I am glad you liked this post.

    Connie, thank you. You are right, not cutting back the canes is the one big difference between a climber and a bush. If one can't fit a climber into the space, than s/he shouldn't grow it there :).

    RR, thank you. I love my GC, although it only looks that great in spring...

    Holley, thank you. I can't imagine someone with your experience being afraid :). I can't wait to see your roses in spring!

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  17. Thank you, Marijke. I am glad you liked it.

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  18. I would love to see you pruning, Masha. Great post, as always. Thank you for sharing your experience.

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  19. Thank you, Dani, maybe you will visit here some day. I would love to meet you and see your garden, too.

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  20. You are making me a better gardener!

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  21. Thank you, Jess. I didn't think that was possible...

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  22. I'm headed out tomorrow to tie one of my large climbers, Westerland, to the fence behind it to train it as you suggested. I'd watched a YouTube video that was helpful but now I'm feeling even more confident about my pruning/tying. This past fall I added Jude the Obscure and Peggy Martin roses to my garden. This spring I'm adding Abraham Darby.

    What kind of camera do you use? I'd like to replace my very basic digital one. Your photos are always incredible!!

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  23. thanks for the tutorial. You may make me a rose gardener yet.

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  24. Casa Mariposa, I hope you will have fun pruning your Westerland, I am looking forward to reading about it on your blog. I love my JtheO, it truly has the best fragrance. My camera is Nikon D3000.

    Greggo, I will do my best :).

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  25. I like pruning, too. Its timing is perfect, as there are not as many competing garden tasks here in early spring.


    That Baron is a handsome rose!

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  26. Those arbors are dreamy! And the last Rose you show, the "Baron ..." looks sturdy, indeed, yet delicate and lovely at the same time. Thanks for the pruning tips. My dad always told me, too, to be unafraid to prune Roses. Thanks for the encouragement and for sharing your lovely blooms!

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  27. Lois, I can't wait to see your roses in spring! I am almost done and I am so tired now...

    Beth, thank you. Gardening is for fun, not for stressing about pruning :).

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  28. Dear Masha,

    I am wishing you a season filled with wrmth
    and a new year filled with love.
    And....a growful "rose"year, so I can see your wunderful photo's from blooming roses.

    Lovely greetings,
    Elly

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  29. Masha - Thanks for these tips. I've read much advice about pruning, but I trust yours more after seeing all the lovely roses in your blog.

    Wishing you good health in the new year!

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  30. What wonderful lessons! I make it a New Year's day tradition to prune my roses...it's giving birth to a new year. I always look forward to this tradition...I love working with my roses.
    I wish you all the best for the New Year.
    Happy New Year, Masha.

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  31. Masha! You have such a beautiful rose garden. Just love all your roses, they are gorgeous!
    I want to wish you a very Happy and Healthy New Year!!! Best you for a wonderful 2012 filled with joy, happiness and year long surprises!

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  32. Wunderschöne Rosenfotos! Ich wünsche dir ein glückliches Gartenjahr und viel Gesundheit und Kraft. Liebe Grüße Annette

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  33. Masha, you're a wonder! Thanks for the beautiful and highly educational post. Your blog is such a rose gardening joy.

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  34. Hello Masha and Happy New Year !
    Thanks you for this post very interesting ! Your CPM is very beautiful and I'm impressed by the number of flowers !
    Amitiés forales !

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  35. Dear Masha I wish you a Happy New Year and plenty of gardening joys!
    you got me definitely hooked on Crownprincess Margaretha. such a beauty... I have to find some place for it!

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  36. This is an excellent post on pruning climbers. I learned a lot. Thanks! You have some stunning roses. Your Crown Princess Margareta is fabulous! I wish you the best in 2012. Happy gardening!

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  37. Masha - a very happy New Year! Thanks for a very informative post. You have provided some very useful pruning tips.

    Cheers,
    Jo

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  38. Masha, Your roses are stunningly beautiful. I love that you are Russian as well because we have 3 children from Russia who are loved dearly! I am glad to have found you! Kristine

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  39. Its such a pleasure visiting your rose garden .

    Thankyou

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  40. I stumbled on your blog awhile back and was really amazed by all the beautiful roses in your garden, your stunning photos and very helpful growing tips. I currently grow some hybrid teas, China roses (e.g., Mutabilis), and a few David Austen English roses. However, I've recently set aside a small area on our property to create an expanded but informal rose & herb garden. I'll definitely be following your posts for inspiration and ideas!

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  41. Thank you so much for your kindness and encouragement. I enjoyed reading your comments, thank you for taking the time to write to me.

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  42. Dear Masha, thanks for answering my pruning question! Can't wait for photos of your roses this spring :-)!
    Christina

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  43. I'm sorry that I'm so late in thanking you for this informative post on pruning the climbers, but I did bookmark it for when I was ready to begin my rose pruning, which is today! Although I have been to several rose pruning classes, it seems that most of the time is spent on how to prune the hybrid teas. My husband usually prunes the roses but he has tendency to cut back pretty severely. They always come back but this year I will do the four climbers and he will do the others, mostly shrub roses and David Austins. I have my Felcos ready and thank you for inspiring the confidence to get the job done!

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