Roses are beautiful, truly wonderful plants that reward countless gardeners with hours upon hours of rewarding recreation and beautiful blooms every year. Their pleasant green foliage, often fringed with burgundy, is beautiful enough, but their blooms are exquisite. In addition, there are cultivars of roses that are available in so many different colors, ranging from the classic red and white to yellow and purple and everything in between.
There are roses with tight, symmetrical blossoms and fragrant, open blossoms, miniature roses, and large, bushy breeds and so much more. There are even many breeds of roses that are well adapted to climbing, so for every setting and taste, there’s a rose to please it.
These plants are beautiful and timeless, and perhaps their diversity and unique natures are, in part, responsible for their global popularity. However, like all plants, they have unique needs, and any given rose has its own unique needs as well. In this article, we’re going to take a quick look at the needs of climbing roses.
Training with a Climbing Rose Trellis
Many species of roses, including but not limited to Arboroses (which are available in a number of different colorful blooms), Don Juan, Polka, Red Eden, Honeymoon Roses, and many others, are suited well to climbing and will thrive best when they are offered support such as a climbing rose trellis, a fence or exposed metalwork.
Sunlight and Temperature
While some roses tolerate shade, the vast majority of rose cultivars will flourish best when they are given access to full sun, at least throughout the growing season. Since many roses will bloom heavily in the Spring and Fall, this makes the “growing season” all months except the Winter months, at least in most zones. It’s also worth mentioning that without excessive heat and with otherwise good conditions, climbers, like other roses, will bloom well throughout the summer.
Choose a spot that is sunny throughout the day or at least throughout most of it. Once established, roses are hardy plants, but they do best without excessive summer temperatures and hard freezes. Think a range of between freezing and up to 80 or 90 at most. During peak months, roses can produce blooms as long as the temperatures are between 60 to 80 degrees and other conditions are suitable. Remember, one sign that roses are stressed by the temperature is the lack of production of blossoms, or more telling, the cessation of production.
Moisture and Soil
Roses are much more tolerant of temperature variation than they are of soil that does not drain well. Loamy, well-draining soil is ideal for roses, and it is also important to keep in mind that most cultivars are highly susceptible to root rot, which can kill an entire plant. While you shouldn’t let the soil dry out completely, soggy soil is a killer. One more thing to note is that roses do best in fairly humid conditions, between 60 or 70 degrees, and it’s better to err on the moister side than the drier side.
Nutrition
Roses feed fairly heavily, and if you want the plant to continue producing plenty of blooms, you’ll want to feed it. Just keep these two things in mind; most fertilizer encourages foliation, and over fertilizing can burn the plant.
When your plants are young, or in the spring when new growth appears, feed the plants with a nitrogen heavy fertilizer to encourage the new shoots. Once they have become established and are a few inches long, you can slow down your fertilization routine. Popular fertilizers for roses include 12-4-8 fertilizers and other nitrogen heavy mixes. Just be sure to slow down once blooms start to appear.
Training with a Climbing Rose Trellis
The good news about training roses with a rose trellis is that it isn’t too much work, and the plants will do most of it. All you need to do is provide the trellis and the plants will do most of the rest. Some gardeners with young or new plants encourage (train) the plant along the trellis by tying new shoots and growth to the trellis with twine. You can do this to start your plants off, but before long they’ll become richly entwined with the trellis you offer them.
Once the plants have old growth and woody stems, they’ll already be established around the trellis and new growth in subsequent seasons will find its own way. Although, feel free to trim your roses as you please so they accommodate the shape you envision for them.
Call Us for More Help
If you’re looking for a climbing rose trellis, you’ll find plenty of wonderful options in our collection of garden trellises at the link above. In addition to our decorative trellises, wall trellises, and garden trellises, we also feature obelisk trellises that are perfect for climbing plants like roses and morning glories, as well as vining vegetables.
Take a look through our collection of trellises, making sure to investigate our other unique gifts for the home, such as hand-blownglass torches, decorative metal side tables, and much, and call us at 208-640-4206 if you need more help with your gardening endeavors this Spring!