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Training climbing roses on a chain link fence

pugetsoundgardener

7 years ago

I planted two David Austin climbing roses - a Heritage Climbing and a Wedgewood Climbing - along a stretch of 4' tall black chain link fence this spring. One of them is really taking off already, so I need to start thinking about training it. I espaliered about 20 fruit trees last year, and I'm assuming it's a somewhat similar process.

If I understand this correctly, I'm supposed to tie the canes out horizontally along the fence as they grow. So here are my questions:

1) How much gap should I leave at the bottom? That is, how far up should I train the lowest cane? Obviously it can't run along the ground. Should I put it 1' up from the ground? Farther?

2) How far apart should I train the canes? Every 1' vertically? Every 2'? Or am I overthinking this?

3) Once the canes are trained are they permanent? Or will they eventually die and need to be cut out and replaced? I see people talking about cutting out dead wood and replacing it, but the old roses I have here don't seem to die out. It's kind of rose Shangri La here.

I'd be happy to hear any other advice anyone has too! I haven't grown climbing roses before. The only roses I have are the ones I inherited and the mini roses I've put in over the last couple of years.

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Comments (3)

Jasminerose, California, USDA 9b/Sunset 18
7 years ago
I'm only into my third year with climbing roses. These videos helped me: Training Climbing Roses with Peter Kukielski and Pruning & Controlling a Climbing Rose by Paul Zimmerman and Training a Rose on a Trellis by Paul Zimmerman.

I think they will answer most of your questions and give you a visual on what to do. Good luck and may you be rewarded with lots of flowers!
toolbelt68
7 years ago
last modified: 7 years ago
My Zeffies canes are very hard so bending is out of the question after their first few feet of growth. So start now as they grow upward, bending them into a nice arch that ends at the top of the fence. Then continue horizontally along the top of the fence. I just loosely tied the canes together as they went along the top of the fence. You can create different arches with each cane to produce a wide or narrow looking fan. Having the canes along the top of the fence makes for easier pruning etc...ie. no bending over!!

Climbers produce their main flush of roses at the top but will produce limbs (laterals) as it grows horizontally. Those will also produce roses. By doing that you end up with a long tube of roses. I planted mine close to 20 years ago and only cut out the dead stuff. It normally occurs at the tips of a lateral.
Since I really know nothing about growing roses I let them go all of those years without removing any of the old canes. I've ended up with a few canes that are still producing roses but not like they did when they were young. So, that being said you may want to get into a routine of removing one of the main canes now and then. That should keep them young. Hope that helps.
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Thanks all for your responses...good point about the tieing rather than weaving...my situation is that I'm a teacher and this is a summer home. It is about 150 feet of 4ft or 6 ft tall chain link fence...not sure yet...i havent put it in yet. This is all a summer project. It is on about a 30 degree slope. I'm not sure about the soil..people say it is very much clay up there but actually not sure about my specific plot of land. I actually live in Florida and go up to Virginia for 2 weeks over Christmas, 8-10 weeks in summer and 1 week in late march/early april. I was thinking roses would be low maintnance. I was trying to get something that would flower over spring and Summer as thats the time i would be there most. I understand the Virginia creeper would be very beautiful in the fall as it changes colors but does it flower over the summer? and does it keep its leaves durring the cold Virginia winter? Do the roses need to be cut back every year or leave them alone on the fence and let them come back every year? also when i was up there last i saw a vine, i think it was a virginia creeper climbing my sycamore tree....will it kill that tree if i dont get rid of it?
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For something low and wide, the Wichurana Ramblers would work well. Their canes are long and very flexible, and so will be easy to train along the fence. I'm not sure how cold-hardy it is, but 'Mel's Heritage' has this growth habit and also repeat-blooms. It was bred from a Wichurana Rambler and a Tea-Noisette. David Austin also has three repeat-blooming Ramblers -- 'The Albrighton Rambler', 'Snow Goose', and 'Malvern Hills', and they also should be easy to train along the fence. You may also wish to consider adding some Clematis to your fence. Most climbing roses pause during the heat of Summer, but this is when the large-flowered type-3 Clematis really get going. They should be hard-pruned every Spring, as they bloom on new wood. That would make it easy when you want to prune and train the rose -- you won't have to worry about breaking any Clematis stems since they'll all be pruned back to a few inches from the ground, anyway. If you go with type-2 Clematis, I'd suggest planting them where they won't climb into the rose very much -- perhaps put the rose in the center, and use the type-2s at the very ends, and type-3s on either side of the rose. Of course, I don't know how long your fence is -- if it's only 20 feet or so, you might want to skip the type-2s altogether. :-) ~Christopher
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Not clothes pins, ever. Graham Thomas has canes that canker easily and keeping a year or two year old cane in close contact with a fence would be a place that water would accumulate next to where there was damage to the cane from wind moving it against the fence. A gentle use of jute string loosely around the canes/stems and then a second knot holding it to the fence. You are in a zone where winter won't kill the canes back?
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Here's the shade above my Blossomtime, before I had a tree cut down. Pretty shady for good repeat bloom, but no doubt the plant would do better with more sun. You might look in to the Canadian Explorer roses for extra hardy ones. Rosecanadian could probably recommend some. For zone 6b most of those I mentioned should be ok, but unusually cold winters can do some damage anywhere. In my zone , zone 7a, we've had temps down to four degrees and prolonged freezes and most of my roses came through pretty well. I don't usually get big die back on my climbers. I'm in NC piedmont. I tend to guess that your intense sun will help make up for some shade too.
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pugetsoundgardener
Original Author
7 years ago
Thanks!

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