• Blog
    • General Gardening
    • Gardening for Children
    • Gardening Videos
    • Insect Pests
    • Landscape Design
    • Trees
    • Vegetables & Fruits
    • Weeds
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Event Announcements
  • Gardening Videos
  • Resources
    • Western North Carolina Gardening Guide
    • Online Resources
      • Soil Testing Information for Home Gardeners
    • Speakers Bureau
  • Garden Helpline
    • Collecting Samples of Plants and Insects
  • The Learning Garden
  • About Us
    • About Us
      • How to Become an Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteer
    • The Association
    • Contact Us
    • Speakers Bureau
    • Sponsors
      • Sponsors: 2019 WNC Gardening Symposium
    • Donate
Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteers of Buncombe County
Blog / Flowers / Roses / Getting Started with Climbing Roses

Getting Started with Climbing Roses

June 20, 2016

Roses_Climbing_CoversCottageThere 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. Roses_Climbing_TwoVarietiesShareArborIt 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.

Roses_ClimbingOnFence
Climbing rose leader canes with lateral growth trained on fence.

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.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Categories Roses Tags flowers

NC Cooperative Extension; Empowering People, Providing Solutions

Blog posts written and published by Extension Master GardenerSM volunteers in Buncombe County.

Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to our blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 3,716 other subscribers

Recent Posts

  • Online Seminar: Fruit Trees for Home Gardens February 16
  • Dramatic Winter Damage? What Should I Do?
  • 2023 School Garden Grants Available: Applications Due February 3
  • What’s THAT Evergreen? Can I grow it?
  • A Gardening Guide for Our Mountains: The Perfect Holiday Stocking Stuffer

Categories

  • Events
    • Extension in Buncombe County
    • Extension Master Gardener Plant Clinic
    • Lectures & Seminars
    • Plant Sales
    • School Garden Grants
  • Flowers
    • Bulbs
    • Perennials & Biennials
    • Roses
    • Wildflowers
  • Gardening for Children
  • Gardening Videos
  • General Gardening
    • Installation & Planting
    • Mulch
    • Native Plants
    • Propagation
    • Seasonal Chores
    • Soils & Fertilizers
  • Houseplants
  • Landscaping
    • Firewise Landscaping
    • Landscape Design
    • Site Conditions
    • Water Management
  • Lawns
  • Pest Management
    • Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
    • Invasive Plants
    • Pesticides
    • Weeds
  • Plant Diseases
  • Plant Insects
    • Beneficial Insects
    • Insect Pests
    • Invasive Insects
  • Shrubs
  • Special Gardens
    • Container Gardens
    • Herb Gardens
    • Pollinator Gardens
    • Rain Gardens
    • Shade Gardens
  • Trees
  • Vegetables & Fruits
  • Wildlife

Contact Us

Buncombe County Extension Office
49 Mount Carmel Road
Asheville, NC 28806
Helpline 828-255-5522

Events

Keep up with our events by subscribing to the blog or checking our Events Calendar.

Explore the Archives

Back to Top

Copyright © 2023 Extension Master Gardeners of Buncombe County. Privacy Policy.