Training climbing roses

A commonly made mistake with climbing roses is to leave them to it.

But roses flower at the ends of vertical growth, and rose stems will naturally grow straight up towards the sun, leaving you craning your neck up to look at a small spread of blooms.

So to get the most out of them, it is up to you the gardener to bend the stems into a more horizontal form. All along these horizontal stems the plant will then create a multitude of short vertical stems that will lead to a stunning wall of roses.

The cheapest and easiest way to do this is to screw vine eyes into your wall or fence and attach horizontal support wires through them. It is highly recommended to get these in place before your rose gets to any great size to avoid you being ripped to shreds!

Then carefully bend down the stems and secure to the wire with twine, leaving room in the loops for the stem to thicken up over time.

Each year in February/March cut back the vertical stems to around three leaf buds/inches above their parent horizontal branch to stop the plant getting unwieldy. If you still want your plant to get higher up the wall, leave a few vertical stems close to the centre of the rose to get long enough for you to bend them horizontally.

The top right half of a trained climbing rose, making use of two support wires 1-2 ft apart.