Rose Pruning by Example: second installation!

Yesterday we looked at Neil's small rose in a pot: today we look at the second one, which is a larger, shrub rose, growing in a sheltered corner, against a fence. Tomorrow we deal with the climber on the house, so don't forget to come back and check that article as well.

Neil wasn't quite sure where or how to prune this one, which has a mixture of old and new shoots, and which was covered in flowers last year.

Now this one is lovely: this is the sort of rose which, if asked to prune, makes me rub my hands in glee, because it's very nearly already perfect.

All it needs is a firm hand now, and it will be fantastic again, later on this year.

Why such enthusiasm?

Most people, putting a rose in this sort of location, will let it just grow straight upwards, which means we get a ton of flowers right up at the top, above fence height: which means that next door get the benefit of the flowers, and we have to look at the scrubby old fence. 

(No offence meant to the fence in this photo, it's a lovely fence, really!)

I spend much of my professional time training Roses, getting them to bend over sideways exactly like this, because this growth shape promotes the most flowering.

If this one were mine, I would help it along by adding some support wires to the fence: the lowest one would be a couple of inches above the gravel boards, then another two or three, horizontally, above it. 

Hang on, I'll get the cat to do some drawing:

There we go, the yellow lines indicate the rough spacing of the horizontal wires, and I should emphasis that the wires go against the fence, BEHIND the rose.

Not in front of it!

We are not trying to tie the rose to the fence.

If you are doing this, it's worth doing a proper job: don't use tiny staples in the fence, and flimsy wire. 

Use vine eyes, and if you check the other side of the fence, you will see where the horizontal battens run, which gives you some decent wood into which to screw the vine eyes.

So although I have drawn - sorry, the cat has drawn - nicely spaced wires, the spacing may be dictated more by where it's possible to get a vine eye securely fixed.

Having stretched some good quality outdoor wire along the newly-installed vine eyes - taut, but not so tight that it pulls the vine eyes out, or goes pingggggggg! when you touch it -  you can then look at pruning.

This is a job of two halves: firstly we need to select four or five main branches, spread out in a fan-shape. These will be tied onto the wires, and will be the permanent framework.

Then we need to nip off the bulk of the thin, new growth, in order to promote new thin, new growth (*laughs*) which will bear the flowers this year.

So, firstly, let's look at our Framework Of Old Wood:

This rose is very nearly there already, hence my enthusiasm: it would only need a little bit of encouragement. Very nearly perfect!

This is what I would be aiming for:

(Blimey, it's much easier to do this in person, than do it with illustrations!)

OK, so in this photo, the red lines indicate where we will bend the main rose stems over, and tie them to the horizontal (yellow) wires.

The aim is to cover the fence completely, and to get as many of the rose stems as possible, as horizontal as possible.

This serves the double purpose of covering up the fence, and bringing the flowers down to a height where we can appreciate them.

I've just noticed that I said "fan shaped" above, and this isn't really a fan, other than informally: it's more of a horizontal spread.

An alternative would be to go for a more formal fan, ie leave the branches straight, but to spread them out into a fan shape.

Here's one I did, some years ago:

Originally, it was just a very untidy, bushy, prickly, lanky thing, flopping all over the path and generally being a nuisance. It is a rambling rose, rather than a proper climber, as is, frankly, a bit too big for the space. But the flowers were lovely, if rather sparse, and the Client was keen to keep it.

I chose the strongest upright, and took that one to the right: then I cut off every single right-pointing shoot, and every single outward-springing shoot, leaving only the ones to the left.

These were then tied in to that old trellis, and to a variety of fixing points on the wall.

I was pretty ruthless in removing any shoots which did not fit my plan.

(As an aside, I often say that I wish I'd been Ruth instead of Rachel - equally biblical, and then I could have been Ruth the Ruthless Gardener. Catchy, don't you think? And so very, very appropriate...) 

After this initial "ruthless" training, ( ha! ha!) all I had to do each year was to cut off all the previous season's new growth, back to this framework of older wood. And every subsequent year, all those angled shoots were covered with flowers.

Right, back to this rose on the fence: we've installed the wires, we have selected our "main" stems, we have decided whether to take them along the wires, as per the red lines, or whether to go for a fan shape.

Now we can take our secateurs and carefully snip off all the smaller side shoots from each of our "main" branches. This will reduce the clutter, clarify the situation, and make it much easier to tie in the main branches. I normally cut them down to 2-3 buds, ie I leave a short length, I don't cut them off flush with the main branch. If you can't see any buds yet, then just cut them back to a couple of inches (4 or  cm).

Once the pruning is done, we can tie in the branches to the wires. Always use something soft and preferably a bit stretchy, don't use wire which can cut the stems, or hard plastic which will damage the bark. And be prepared to check and loosen/replace these ties at least once a year, otherwise you'll find your rose being strangled, as it thickens up.

I think I've written about ties once or twice - if you go to the Search box, top left of the page, and type in "ties" or "tying", it should lead you to some helpful articles. Oh, all right, I'll do it for you - here's one that might be helpful.

The idea is to keep that framework of old wood, and every year, once flowering is finished, we go over the plant and again, clip off all the new growth, leaving just the old wood behind. That way, you keep the flowers at easily-viewable height, and the rose never gets out of control.

After a few years, you can allow one or two well-placed new stems to grow out, to replace one or two of the older ones, but that's a story for another article.

So there we go, job done: we've decided on our Framework Of Old Wood, we've trimmed off the unwanted growth, we've tied the framework in: we could give this rose a small fistful of granulated feed, or a slosh of liquid feed, and a good watering, and then all we have to do is wait for summer, and enjoy the flowers!

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