Prune & Train Your Climbing Rose

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Prune & Train Your Eden Climbing Rose, why and when to prune your climbing roses. 

Pruning to renovate and get maximum My Eden Rose (also known as Pierre de Ronsard) has gone bonkers this year. Now that it is late Fall I must prune it back before real winter hits.

Zepherine rose climbing porch post with text overlay, Pruning climbing roses to renovate and get more blooms, Flower patch Farmhouse

Take a look below at how the climbing roses looked this past June.  (Eden is the lighter pink to the right of the arbor).

 Come along as I show you how to prune & train your climbing rose for masses of blooms.

Prune & Train Climbing Rose. there is a lot of info out there on how to prune your roses that is generic and doesn't really fit all roses. Come see how to prune your climbing rose, it is unique.

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All the best garden tips

Grow the Eden Rose aka Pierre de Ronsard!

My Eden Rose is one of my all-time favorite roses. Today I will share how you can grow this beauty and enjoy it in your garden!

Rambling Rose or Climbing Rose?

This post is about pruning climbing roses which can be confused with rambling roses.  

How do you tell the difference?  Usually by when and how they flower.  

Ramblers typically bloom once a season, around June in most parts, and only on old growth.  Climbing roses will repeat bloom throughout the Summer and right on into Fall.

When to Prune Climbing Roses

(note: this was more of a refurbishment of the older climbing rose.  When I am just pruning to keep it neat I prune the lateral canes to about 6 to 12 inches long.  I will only cut back the main cane if it needs it. Main canes normally will not need to be cut back but every 3 years or so to keep the rose healthy. Some have let the main cane become like a tree trunk and only have roses high up on the plant.)

Many prune climbers in winter, between December and February.   I have to do it in late November, or early December as we can be buried in snow. 

I wouldn’t be able to access my roses.  But a major prune or renovation can be done anytime in late Autumn through late Winter.

Pruning the climbing rose in late Fall will get us ahead of the game.  This will benefit your rose if you are hit with heavy snow like we are.  

If the canes are left long and wild the snow would snap off the canes.  That would cause damage that could get infested with bugs and diseases.

Also, strong wind can also cause major damage to long, supple canes.

Here is what Eden climbing rose looks like before I start my pruning and training today.

Prune & Train Your Climbing Rose for masses of bloom in Summer. This technique works on all climbing roses and can be done in Fall or late Winter.

How to Prune Your Climbing Rose

This Eden Rose has become quite the wild one.  Lots of laterals and new canes have shot out and up in the past few weeks, all blooms have faded and dropped the petals.  

Eden put on a grand show all Summer long and now it is time to let her rest and get her tidied back up for winter.

Prune & Train Your Climbing Rose for masses of bloom in Summer. This technique works on all climbing roses and can be done in Fall or late Winter.

The bottom of the canes were pretty much hidden from view. 

Remove weeds and other plants surrounding the rose to get a clear view of the base of the canes.

Prune & Train Your Eden Climbing Rose for masses of bloom in Summer. This technique works on all climbing roses and can be done in Fall or late Winter.

Why certain rose canes need to be cut out

Note the center cane, the darker rather gnarled-looking one, which is an old main cane that needs to come out.  

The openings in the bark of the cane are not a good thing.  

Those places can let bugs and/or diseases infect the plant so this cane definitely needs to be cut out.

Prune & Train Your Eden Climbing Rose for masses of bloom in Summer. This technique works on all climbing roses and can be done in Fall or late Winter.

Since it is loaded with lateral canes (canes that grow out of this cane all along it to the top), you need to start by cutting out those lateral canes. 

Cut them off as close to the main cane as I can so they won’t hang up on other canes or the arbor.

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Once you have removed the laterals just cut off the gnarly cane at the base and then every 24 inches to make shorter pieces, they are easier to pull out.

(This cane was originally over feet 12 long, cutting it into 2-foot pieces made it much easier to handle.

Just removing that cane helps to really open up the rose and let you see what you should prune next.

As you see there are two older canes left.  One to the right and one towards the left, you can tell they are older by their color, brown instead of bright green.  

I am refurbishing this rose along with pruning it which means I am cutting out most of the old canes to let the energy go to the newer canes.

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I chose to prune out the older cane on the left, using the same method as I did with the first cane.

This is optional, I did not have to prune this one out for any other reason than I wanted to.

With the larger canes I used my larger loppers but for the smaller canes and removing leaves I use my hand pruner.

Which rose canes remain

The green canes remaining are very pliable and these are the ones that will be trained for optimum bloom next Summer.  

Why train the climbing rose

With climbers and many other types of roses, you will get more blooms by training the canes in a 45 degree angle or more.  (the more horizontal you can get the cane the better)

If you look closely at this cane below you can see the bud eyes.

Some are located where leaves attach to the cane. Each of those bud eyes will produce a lateral cane, lateral canes are the ones to bloom.  

By forcing the main cane to be at a 45-degree angle or more it encourages more of the laterals to sprout and at the end of each lateral cane, a rose will bloom.

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How to Train your Climbing roses

I train this cane in an s type pattern on my arbor.

Though it is green and pliable it is stiff enough I am very careful not to force it too much into a horizontal line or it will snap off.

You can cut off all the leaves on the cane, they would only get moldy in the winter and cause possible problems other than just looking ugly.

Do I always get de-leafing done in Fall? No, sometimes it doesn’t get done but can be done in late winter/early spring.

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I use pantyhose cut into strips to secure my rose to the arbor.  

They are stretchy enough that as the rose grows they don’t cut into the cane and as they age in the weather they turn a green color that basically disappears into the foliage of the plant.

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I do the same with the other green canes, I tie them up as best I can in a 45 degree angle or as horizontally as I can get them without breaking in an S type pattern up the arbor trellis.

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It doesn’t matter that they cross over each other.  Pruning climbers is different than the bush roses.  I make sure to secure the canes to the arbor so avoid rubbing that could make wounds.

There is one green cane that you see going straight up.  It is tucked into the arbor at the top on the right.  That cane was a bit too stiff so I just let it go straight up. 

You can see on the left the old cane I had let remain on the plant is tied up to the left side of the arbor.  These will also put out lateral canes but at the top. Producing flowers so I will have roses from top to bottom on this arbor.

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Last but not least do some clean up around the base.  In many areas, you don’t want to leave any rose debris around the base of your plant. 

Some struggle with diseases and pests.  I don’t have those issues so I don’t get too up in arms over picking up every leaf.  But you may need to in your area.

The finishing touches after pruning & training your rose

I have a pretty thick layer of pine straw mulch around the base so I just top that off with some chicken manure. It is fresh from the pen but I don’t worry about burning my plants.  

When they are dormant and not actively growing this will do them no harm.  Plus the extra carbon in the thick pine straw mulch dilutes the high nitrogen of the chicken manure.  

I have been doing this for years and I get the best results and lots of worms!

Once I had the first rose pruned and trained I started on the other side of the Arbor.  

When I pruned back the red rose, which is called Tess of the d’Ubervilles by David Austin roses,  I realized it was planted far enough away from the arbor that I can just trim it back to a bush or I can pillar it. (want to know how to pillar a rose? CLICK HERE)

Instead of Tess climbing this side of the arbor I can plant the Eden rose I started this past Summer by Air Layering it.  I can’t wait to see both sides of this arbor covered with all pink roses next June!

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Here is is planted all snug up to the arbor. It is small but come next Spring this rose will shoot out tons of new canes and be gorgeous.  

It will take a year or two to catch up with Eden on the opposite side. That is okay, gardening is always about the journey.

Here is a video where I start pruning this rose.  I will finish it up later.

Happy Gardening!

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Prune and Train your Eden Climbing Rose for maximum blooms in Summer. Nothing is lovelier than this rose covered in blooms. Climbing roses are easy to prune and shape to get the maximum amount of roses possible, even for the novice gardener. And Fall is a great time to do it.

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13 Comments

  1. I don’t have any recommended measurements, go with what looks good in your space and have fun. The good thing about plants is if you find the spot you have chosen doesn’t work out you can always move them.

  2. Alexandra Guerrero says:

    Thank you for this article! I am going to be planting climbing rose on 3 arches to hopefully make a tunnel effect. Hopefully each arch will look like yours! One of the arches will have an eden rose on each side. How close do you think the 3 arches can be placed? And do you recommend a minimum width for the arches?
    I’m gardening in Long Island NY zone 7a.

  3. Barbara L Isbell says:

    Thank you so much for this very thoroughly explained and easy to follow guide. I am growing my first climbing roses (wollerton old hall) on an arbor and feel that with your tutorial they have the best chance to survive and be hearty with the masses of blooms I am dreaming of!

  4. Good to know that my Eden rose I bought last summer is not doing as well as expected. So you have to wait a few years to have a decent looking rose plant. I thought I was doing something wrong even tho all my other roses are doing great. I’ll have to be patient (not easy for me) for another year or 2. Loved your very informative pruning info! I will be pinning it too!

  5. Mine took a couple years to take off and now it is so bountiful. But that is pretty normal for new roses. By the third year you will be more than pleased with it.

  6. Got a new Eden rose this early summer. Didn’t do much but hoping for a better spring since it is now established I think! Getting brown lower leaves already. Is that normal? None of my other roses are doing that.

  7. Thank you for this very informative pruning,it has always seemed complex to me pruning roses,I use farmyard manure,no chickens,but it seems to work as they are heavy feeders but so worth it.

  8. Learn the little tips and tricks go so far in getting what we want from our gardens. I tend to try things out personally before actually posting about it to see how easy or difficult it may be. Gold Bunny sounds like a great roses, I love the name alone. 😀 I need to hunt one down. I don’t have a yellow climber yet!

  9. It really works well and I hope to get just as many blooms on my Eden as I did this past Summer, it was just amazing and it lasted all Summer long.

  10. I definitely pinned this! You gave such a great and informative step by step tutorial! I hope to be able to follow your great example and use these steps for a future trellis in my backyard next year. Thank you so much for sharing this at the DI & DI Link party too!

  11. Thanks so much, Pamela! It is spring here in Perth WA and my Pierre de Ronsard is growing beautifully but now I KNOW how to do it much better at the end of the season! I have a new yellow climbing rose called Gold Bunny and it is covered in buds – so glad I have had your tutorial to know how to prune and train it in autumn/winter.

    Happy gardening!

    Rae

  12. Late January is perfect for your area. Late January here would have us under 3 to 4 feet of snow. :)When I lived in Stockton, Calif I also pruned my roses in late January. I loved my long growing season there.
    I add chicken manure directly only when my plants are dormant or going dormant. I learned this long ago by dumping a ton on my upper bed thinking it was an easy way to kill off everything so I could replant the following Spring. Instead of killing out everything they all grew like crazy and were supremely healthy. My chicken litter straight from the pen has tons of straw in it already and it looks like dry dirt so I don’t know if that makes a difference. On these roses I have a thick layer of pine straw beneath the chicken manure.

  13. Thanks for great lesson on pruning my Eden climber. Don’t have snow in El Cajon Calif.(SAN Diego) but will prune in Jan like always. We have chickens so might add manure to roses directly instead of composting it? Love your garden blog that applies to us in hot climates.😊
    Dawn

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