Roses

There is nothing more romantic than living in a rose-covered cottage or walking under an arbor or pergola covered in fragrant roses. Climbing roses can add a colorful vertical accent to almost any garden.

Support structures
Climbing roses need a sturdy structure—an arbor, pillar, pergola, or lattice—on which to grow. Make sure your structure can support the weight of your climber. Although some climbers stop growing at 10 or 12 feet, others can reach 30 feet or more in height. Unlike beans or peas, roses will not voluntarily climb a structure, so it is up to you to get them onto the structure. It is remarkably frustrating to have a beautiful arbor but a rose happily growing in exactly the wrong direction!

Location
Site your rose carefully. Like all roses, climbing roses want full sun. Once trained on a structure, your rose will not be as easily moved as a non-climbing rose that you can simply dig up and relocate.

Planting
Plant your rose 12 inches or more from the structure, not right up against it. Note that if you are planting up against a house or shed, overhanging eaves may reduce the amount of rain water that hits the ground and you will need supplemental water.

Leaders vs. laterals
Climbing roses have two types of canes—leaders and laterals. Leaders are the long canes that come out of the ground and are usually the ones you attach to your structure. Lateral canes come off of lead canes and produce flowers.

Training the rose
The more parallel to the ground your lead canes, the more laterals they will produce, and the more blooms you will have. A climber growing straight up an arbor will only have blooms at the top. Therefore, you want to train the lead canes to grow parallel to the ground on a supporting structure. It is much easier to train a climber on an arbor, pergola, or lattice structure than on a column or pillar.  If you want to wrap your climber around a pole, wrap the lead canes as parallel to the ground as possible.

Young canes are the most supple and amenable to bending or shaping. Plan on tying up your climber several times during the growing season so you can work with new growth. Twine and string are good choices for tying canes. They are softer than wire, which can cut or damage the canes.

Continuing care and pruning
The care of climbing roses is similar to that of their non-climbing brethren. They need the same fertilizing and watering regimen. They are susceptible to the same diseases. However, pruning climbing roses is different. Remove dead, damaged, or diseased canes, but let the healthy lead canes grow long to suit both your taste and your structure. You should also prune back the laterals to keep them in check and to promote re-blooming.

Learn more
To learn more about pruning climbing roses, contact your local rose society. The Asheville Blue Ridge Rose Society serves Western North Carolina. Visit their website at www.ashevillerosesociety.org or contact them by email at rosesocietywnc@gmail.com .

The Buncombe County Extension Master Gardener Volunteers’ “Gardening in the Mountains” lecture series will present a talk on rose care and disease resistant roses at the County Extension office, 49 Mt. Carmel Rd., on Thursday, July 21, 11:30 to 1. Call 828-255-5522 to reserve a seat.

Article written by Judy Deutsch, Extension Master Gardener Volunteer.

When I see a blossom, my first response is to smell it. If it has no scent, it diminishes my experience with that flower. Roses are no exception. They are a “must have” in my garden, along with perennials and annuals. After working in my rose garden the first blooming year and smelling its wonderfully sweet scent, I decided that only plants with a heavenly rose scent could be a part of my rose gardening.

Where do roses get their fragrance?
Bob Hatterschide, in a classic article for the American Rose Society, notes that roses get their scent from essential oils exuded from glands on the lower petal surfaces. These oils include Rhodianol, the essential oil that has the smell described as “old rose;” Geraniol, the scent of geranium foliage; Nerol, a magnolia-like scent; and, Eugenol, a spicy fragrance sometimes described as the scent of oil of cloves.

Describing rose scents
Of course each person experiences scents differently, so it is difficult, if not impossible, to use scent in judging roses.  Scents have little to do with whether a rose wins a class or not. Hatterschide describes the many types of rose scents. These include flower scents, such as rose or damask, clover, hyacinth, honeysuckle, nasturtium, and violet; fruit scents such as apple, lemon, and raspberry; spicy scents, such as bay, cloves, orris, and pepper; and other scents such as musk.

Factors that affect fragrance
Lois Ann Helgeson, in another American Rose Society report, discusses the connections between fragrances and rose classes and notes that scents in roses vary by temperature, humidity, and the amount of sunshine. Even the degree to which the blossom is open limits or enhances the fragrance. Rose fragrances also vary by color.

Individual differences
Not all roses are fragrant. Hatterschide and Helgeson note that James Alexander Gamble concluded that about 25 percent of roses have little or no scent, 20 percent were highly fragrant, and the remainder fall somewhere in between. The American Rose Society award for outstanding new fragrant roses is appropriately named for Gamble. The award list is a great starting point for anyone interested in especially fragrant roses.

Personal favorites
Some of my favorites are ‘Cecile Brunner’, a dainty pink climber; ‘Dolly Parton’, a hybrid tea that is orange, large, and over-the-top fragrant; ‘Mr. Lincoln’, a dark red hybrid tea that grows tall and smells like heaven; and, ‘Fire Fighter’, another red upright hybrid tea. Just remember, next time you think about the perfect flower for your sunny garden, try the wonderful reward of a fragrant rose.

To learn more about the James Alexander Gamble Fragrance Award visit http://www.rose.org/members-only-2/resources/the-james-alexander-gamble-fragrance-award/ . 

Article written by Donna Sapp, Extension Master Gardener Volunteer.