Pruning your climbing rose - the five minute guide.
Hello Friends!
I am fighting the urge to take ALL the decorations down and remove any and all trace of Christmas from the house - except the food and the champagne...the food and the champagne can stay. I hope your Christmas was marvellous and that you had the best time with your loved ones (or without them...without them is good too!) School holidays are utterly bloody when it comes to post-Christmas and we are basically running on a treadmill trying to keep everyone occupied in this rainy dreary weather. Between rain and three small children many a five minute opportunity has passed me by this week, so this is a short missive, to tell you about what I did on THURSDAY (yes, Thursday was all I managed this week) so:
Monday: No gardening, because pesky kids and rain
Tuesday: No gardening, because pesky kids and rain
Wednesday: No gardening, because pesky kids and rain
Thursday: I prune my climbing rose! I do it as the light fades, and I suddenly realise what a GIFT it is to be time-poor, because there is no time to agonise about what shoot should stay, and what should go. Option paralysis really has no place in the five minute garden. You go out, you grab your secateurs and you make decisions, really fast. I'm putting a very simple lowdown below of how to prune your climbing roses, and it is intentionally vague, because above all things, instinct will get you everywhere when it comes to pruning roses: they are such tough nuts, so just do what feels right (and if that means chopping the entire thing to the ground, then do it, knowing that you'll get new shoots to mess around with before you can blink.
Friday: No gardening, because pesky kids and rain
How to prune your climbing rose.
Denuded of leaves, now is the time to get in and prune your climbing roses. Begin by sharpening your secateurs and then remove any shoots you don’t like (dead ones, dying ones, thin ones, spindly ones, growing-in-the-wrong-direction ones etc.) and get back to a ‘framework’ of sorts. This simply means choosing the shoots you like and tying them to their support (obelisk, wall, trellis, arch) so that they hug it closely. This involves quite a bit of trial and error, as the important thing is to cover the support as entirely as possible (and crucially from as low down as possible). Your framework shoots need to be pliable enough to bend around and down, and you may have to sacrifice the largest ones in order to achieve this. You can see below (you'll have to excuse the trespassing cobaea coming in from the right hand side of the picture) that I have basically ignored this rose as there are no curves at all on the framework. Keep following me as I tie in the new shoots though...you can keep me accountable! This does, however, show you my nude basic framework. If you've just got one long stalk with no shoots coming from the bottom, it's best to cut it down quite low and let it re-sprout...scary I know, but it's fine...SWEAR.
The idea is that new shoots will then grow off this framework, and you’ll get floral abundance. Once these shoots start sprouting you need to be pretty vigilant if you want as many flowers as possible and this is where the five minute garden can help. If you tie in one shoot a day and keep curling them round in circles (something you can only do when they are still young and pliable), it will seriously help you to get that covered-in-roses look. The more curves you have on your framework, the more flowers you'll get - it's to do with gravity - this is why you see neglected climbing roses (like mine) with lots of flowers up at the top and none down below. For a better idea of what you're aiming for google climbing roses at Sissinghurst in winter and check out their framework.
If you've got shoots that you need to shorten, then cut them just above a bud - here's one close-up to show you what a burgeoning bud looks like - it's literally just a small lump on the shoot, and you'll see lots of them - just pick one and cut above it - you'll get a shoot from this bud as the plant attempts to compensate for the wound you've made.
That's it my wonderful people. I will probably get outside over the weekend, just to claim back my garden time, and plan next week rather more carefully than this one if I'm to snatch any garden time.
All the good things, always
x Laetitia