How to deal with an overgrown Climbing Rose

I've written quite a few articles about rose pruning - just type "rose" into the search box, top left of the screen - and today, it's time for a very brief article on dealing with a neglected climbing rose.

As usual, I forgot to take a "before" picture: the rose in question had grown to above gutter height on a single-storey building, had swallowed up one window altogether, and was now threatening to take over the French doors as well. 

Worse, it was stretching outwards, swamping the planting below it, and interfering with anyone trying to walk past, meaning that the lawn was now being worn away, as people stepped off the path to avoid the rose.

My first thought, on first seeing it, was to suggest to the Client that it was time to give it a really thorough cutting back, taking it right back to the wall, removing all the huge mass of overhanging material:much of which looked dead.

However, as often happens, the Client wasn't quite ready for a drastic cut-back, and asked that I just remove the dead wood, the overhang, the bits sticking out over the path: clear the window altogether, and cut back to the point where the doors could actually be opened.

This is perfectly ok: I do this for a living, I've been doing it for nearly two decades now, so I have total confidence that plants will grow back, they will fill that space again, they will be covered with flowers next year, they most like won't die:  but I know that it's a bit scary to allow someone to cut something back radically, if you are not quite sure about it.

So I forced my way in underneath it, where I could see that all the "underneath" growth was indeed brown, dead wood. As we all know - well, those of us where were RHS trained, at any rate, the first thing you do with roses is the Three Ds, ie remove all Dead, Diseased and Damaged (or Dying) wood, so that's where I started.

Here I am, in the middle of the rose, halfway through the job - I'm under an overhanging canopy of branches, looking sideways through it.

Note the preponderance of dead brown wood!

Every single dead brown bit was snipped off and pulled out, going as far back, ie as close to the wall and the "live" stems, as I could.

As I removed this dead material, the upper canopy starting drooping downwards, so I also removed the underneath layer of those stems, even if they were alive: anything spindly came off, any stem which was visibly damaged from rubbing up against other stems was removed, and anything which deliberately and maliciously poked me or scratched me, was also removed.

One builder bag full of mostly brown dead rose wood later....

This is where we were: the overhanging material was gone, the dead wood was gone, the window (including a velux one in the roof, which I had no idea existed) was revealed, the path was clear to walk on, and the French windows, if not quite completely clear, were at least now able to open.

At this point I went and got one of my long-handled tools, and started working on the top growth: partly to take more of the weight off, to ensure it didn't flop down over the door again at the first sign of heavy rain, or high wind: but also because several of the stems were growing behind the gutter, so I had to remove the top growth of those stems before I cut them below the gutter.

As luck would have it, at that point Mrs Client came out, and decided that it was so nice to see the stone walls again, and so nice to be able to walk along the path, and there was so much more light inside now, that she would like me to reduce it further, so that this time next year it would look more like this photo, and less like the way it was before I started.

This is a very sensible attitude, and I wish more Clients would understand that in order to get a climber to fill a certain space in the summer, it needs to be cut down to a lot less than that, the previous winter.

Let me say that in another way - if Mrs Client wants, next summer, this rose to look exactly as it does above, ie to arch nicely over the French windows without drooping all over the path, obscuring the window and attacking passers-by, then it has to be cut back by at least six feet, right now. Because it will grow at least six feet next year.

We smiled at each other.

"Go on, " she said. "Cut it right back, Back to below the height of the gutter, right back."

"Are you sure?" I asked. "It will look a bit bare."

"Go on, do it." she said. I like this Client. "The only thing is..." she said.

I looked at her in mock horror, wondering what was coming.

"The only thing is..... do you mind cutting it back more? I mean, you've just spent time carefully cutting it back as I wanted it, and now I've changed my mind. You did say, right at the beginning, that it would benefit from a proper prune..."

"No problem," I replied, cheerfully:  "Even if you'd allowed me to cut it right back at the start, I would still have done it this way, because if I'd just hacked straight across it, the whole lot would have come down in one enormous bundle, and would probably have pulled the guttering off."

I showed her how many of the stems were forcing their way up between the gutter and the roof, and she saw what I meant: not least when I handed her am entire roof tile which I'd found in the bed below the rose! This is another danger with letting climbing roses get too big, they can cause damage which you can't see - gutters, roof tiles, dampness, support wires and/or trellis pulling away from the wall, all sorts of things. Which is why I recommend, every few years, giving plants a really hard cut-back to allow the owner to check the walls and deal with any problems which may have been hidden.

And anyway, in my experience, virtually all climbers benefit from a hard cut-back, now and again: it rejuvenates them, it allows the new growth to be more evenly and pleasingly distributed, it allows light and air to get to the older stems, which can help to reduce pests and diseases.

"Cut it back!" she cried.

"Hoorah!" I cried.

Mrs Client went back inside, I got to work:

Ten minutes later, the gutter was cleared of stems above and below (although Mr Client would need to go up a ladder and extract the short lengths which were still stuck behind the guttering - I don't do that sort of job, as I don't want to take on liability for any damage to the guttering), and what remains had been trimmed to a reasonably balanced shape.
 

Job done!

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