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Easy Tips To Help Your Climbing Roses Reach For The Sky
By MARCO ROSSI
Most varieties of climbing roses grow up to 12 feet tall — and some even beyond that. To achieve such towering blooms, you need to ensure they have the best conditions to thrive.
First, you’ll need to train them to grow onto a structure like a trellis. Begin fastening the canes about 1½ feet off the ground, and tie them to the trellis at 1-foot increments.
If you grow them on a trellis against a wall, plant them 12 inches away from the structure so the roots get plenty of rain. Make sure they get about six hours of full sun daily.
To increase bloom production, you can bend the stems right down in a method known as "self-pegging," which suppresses a hormone that allows only one bud to grow per vine.
Second, you’ll need to prune your roses regularly to encourage new shoots, but avoid pruning them in the first two years while they're setting roots because this inhibits growth.
After that, prune before new growth at the end of winter or the beginning of spring. Start by cutting back dead branches, then prune back up to ⅔ of the lateral shoots’ length.
Once your roses are established, occasionally prune thick, structural canes to ensure you get flowers at the foot of the structure. After four years, remove one main stem a year.
"[I]t is best to remove them and start training younger and more pliable new main canes," Kristen Smith, rose product manager at Star Roses and Plants, told Homes & Gardens.
You can remove more canes if your climbing roses need it, but restrict heavy pruning to every three or four years, and do it around June after the first round of flowers fade.