I love spending time in my garden and one group of plants I’ve been particularly enjoying is my collection of climbing roses as they have been loving the heat and providing blooms both outside and inside as cut flowers.
I have a yellow banksia rose that has completely covered the hot westerly side of an ugly shed. This evergreen climber flowered earlier in the year in spring, with a profusion of double yellow flowers that are only lightly perfumed. The shed wall is about 3.5 meters tall and 8 meters long and I planted one 200mm pot sized plant 4 years ago and it is now totally covered so its defiantly a good option for a large wall that needs covering quickly. Just give it some support such as wires or a trellis to hang onto and it will do the rest of the work for you. The banksia rose the best climbing rose for a hot dry garden and I’m impressed on how well it copes with the extreme heat its experiencing throughout summer.
It doesn’t mind a bit of competition either as below the rose I have planted a row of agapanthus ‘Cloudy Days’ that flowered all through the festive period. The care for this rose couldn’t be easier either, I take to it with a set of long handled battery powered hedging shears and simply remove any wispy growth to keep it in shape, remembering not to do this when flower buds are forming. I don’t even mind clearing up the pruning after it as its thornless.
At the front of the house in a northerly but sheltered position that gets lots of light, I have a climbing ornamental grape that covers a pergola. I love this climber as it provides summer protection from the sun but allows winter light in however, I wanted to add a little interest so two years ago planted a Lamarque climbing rose. This is a highly fragrant climbing rose that gets to 3 meters so works well scrambling amongst the grape vine punctuating it with its white clusters of blooms. As it is highly fragrant it is a lovely way to welcome guests to the house, It will flower throughout the warm months and was a lovely bonus for my guests during the holidays.
Pruning needs to be slightly more delicate than a Banksia rose as they dot like a hard prune, this will lead to the plant sulking and producing less blooms. All you need to do is remove any dead or damaged wood and deadhead the flowers to ensure fresh flushes throughout the warm months. Lamarques can suffer in humid climates showing fungal issues however this doesn’t tend to affect the flowers or vigour of the plant and I haven’t noticed any issue with it growing within the dense foliage of the ornamental grape vine.
By far my most showy rose is my red variety of the Pierre De Ronsard rose. This climbing rose gets masses of cartoon style old world charm blooms and is perfect for covering an arch or wall. The original Pierre De Ronsard is a stunning blushing pink with the similar double cupped blooms, both have little to no fragrance, but the beauty of the rose is more than enough to make it a lovely addition to any garden space.
This rose requires fertile soil to do well so make sure you improve your soil with plenty of organic matter, but no pruning is required for the first few years. If growing against a wall like mine try to espalier the longer canes horizontally as this will produce lots of blooms on the spurs that grow vertically. This rose needs lots of sun as it can suffer from fungal issues so try to minimise shade and if growing over an arch remove wood that clutters the plant up.
Although roses love the sun I treat all of mine with a heavy mulch of leaf mould, its actually one of the first jobs I learnt to do in the garden and creating it is very simple. If you don’t have leaf mould pine bark mulch is the next best option and I find a depth of 100mm is perfect, supplementing water when necessary, understanding that rain water finds it hard to penetrate deep mulch like this.
