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Gardening in the UK

Help Training Roses on an Arch

20 years ago

Hi. I bought one of those cheap metal arches last year and planted Penny Lane on one side and Dorothy Perkins on the other. The roses made a lot of growth last year and I twined them around the main supports of the arch. This year they have both put out laterals, and Dorothy Perkins has gone mad putting out laterals over 2 feet long. These are just sticking up in the air at the top of the arch. Should I cut these back or pull them down and tie them from one main support bar to the other, i.e. horizontally. There are loads of articles on pruning roses and Im not a complete amateur but I can't find anything on Arches. I'd appreciate advice from someone who has done a successful arch. Many thanks and greetings from monsoon ridden Dublin!

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Comments (5)

garden_nerd
20 years ago
I wouldn't cut off the laterals, they're the bits that are going to flower. Dorothy Perkins is a rambler that sends up long (10 feet or more) wands of growth one year, which send out laterals that flower the next, although I think they also will flower in subsequent years. I tie the wands in wherever convenenient, wearing full body armour, and cut off anything at the tip that doesn't fit. To avoid an impenetrable thicket, I cut out some of the flowered wands each year. They are vicious and untidy plants, though they do look nice when they flower.

If you do succeed in pulling the laterals down and tying them in, I'd be interested in hearing how they respond.

Don't know what kind of rose Penny Lane is - a number of types are sold under the name of "climber" but seem to have widely different growth habits. Some of mine (like Summer Wine) have formed a vigorous upright bush rather than climbed.

Evil thorns like knives on that one too. Don't know why I grow them really - just because they're roses, I think.
irishguy
Original Author
20 years ago
Thanks for the advice Garden Nerd, I went out last night and tied them in as best I could. There doesnt seem to be any sign of buds on Dorothy Perkins yet, but we live in hope. I will let you know how it works out as it matures. By the way I noticed my next door neighbour has gone and bought the exact same arch as me and if my eyes don't deceive me I think they have put Dorothy Perkins on theirs as well. Ah well as Oscar Wilde said "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"
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I think yours is probably mislabeled Mendocino. I went out to specifically check for thorns on my plant, which is blooming now, and saw a few, non-obtrusive ones, but only down low on the plant. You could cut a bucket of flowers and not find a thorn anywhere near a flower (and actually, I did, and it won in the OGR bouquet category at last week's Cal Coastal Rose Soc. show in Carlsbad). I would think this rose would be easy to train if only you have a big enough space to start with and you kept after it -- the new canes are prolific and are mostly from the base of the plant and very lax. It would be nice flattened along a fence, but I don't think these canes would be long enough to go over the top of an arch. Mine is about 6 feet tall by 5 feet wide and is in a place where it hides an old tool shed from the rest of the yard, and it does an admirable job of that -- so I just let it sprawl there.
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New Dawn, and all the other repeat blooming hardy climbers I know, actively snigger at the nice, neat little drawings of training climbers in rose books. For one thing, they are very much 3-D objects, which take up a larger footprint than often expected. So one reason you are having a hard time distinguishing between main canes and laterals is that it is a *human* distinction that has little to do with what the rose is doing. If it isn't giving a good spring flush, I'd suspect something else is going on besides lack of pruning. Repeat bloom is heavily dependent on deadheading, so that is where the pruning issue is going to show up. If the rose is simply taking up too much room, find a handy suit of armor and wade in. My honest feeling is that this isn't really the right rose for the location - that there are warm climate climbers that would do a better job of hiding the tower and be easier to train. However, I don't know those.
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Stephanie thank you sooooo much for the placement info on Rev - that is so good to know! I never considered roses that "look up" - mine would be on an arch so I wouldn't ever get a good view of Rev with that growth habit. SO he's off my list for now - phew. Roseseek - mildew does come 'round my garden here and there so Renae seems like the winner over Crepuscule (also, is it just me, or does the name Crepuscule remind anyone else of some kind of ocean dwelling mollusk? Just such an inelegant sounding name compare to, say rev d'ore....LOL) Vapor omg i love your additional suggestions - are you the little devil on my shoulder or the little angel, i can't tell! GAH! :)
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garden_nerd
20 years ago
A pair of semis down the road from me have each got one of those yellow May-flowering roses growing up the front. Looks fantastic. I wonder which neighbour thought of it first.
irishguy
Original Author
20 years ago
Well Garden Nerd, I said I'd let you know how I got on. I tied in the laterals and Penny Lane is flowering and looking well, Dorothy Perkins is full of buds but has quite a bit of powdery mildew due to our strange summer of drought and deluge, I hope the buds open. My neighbours didnt tie theirs in and it has enormous wands about 5 feet in length sticking out all over it and not a flower in sight yet. Thanks for the advice.
garden_nerd
20 years ago
Nice to hear you've got a result! Their rose may well flower like mad next year, though.

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