Climbing Roses Solve Thorny Space Problems
Climbing roses, overlooked in recent years in favor of the more highly touted hybrid tea roses, are gaining popularity as home gardens shrink in size and vertical space becomes more valuable.
Among the dozens of old favorites and new creations, four white climbing rose varieties are especially noteworthy: Sally Holmes; Climbing Iceberg; Lace Cascade and Lady of the Dawn.
One of the interesting aspects of Southern California’s long growing season is its affect on roses. Some varieties that in other parts of the country or the world behave as demur shrubs explode in size here and can be trained as climbing roses.
Sally Holmes and Lady of the Dawn are two such roses. Sally Holmes, hybridized in England by amateur grower R. A. Holmes, who named his new creation after his wife, is a four- to five-foot shrub in most parts of the world. But here, it explodes into a very vigorous, 15- to 20-foot garden showpiece.
I’ve grown Sally Holmes plants in my garden for the last three years and am astounded at both their beauty and endurance. Sally produces huge clusters of hydrangea-like blooms filled with single flowers of buff, pure white or white with pink tinge. In cooler weather, the flowers take on a definite pink hue.
But what makes this rose so remarkable is that it hangs on to those clusters for weeks on end. Last July, I noted clusters that stayed in flower for one full month, even when the temperatures exceeded 90 degrees. An added bonus is that Sally Holmes is very disease-resistant. The only drawback is there’s little fragrance.
Lady of the Dawn, developed in Holland and sold as a floribunda, produces arching canes of 8 to 10 feet that, when pegged or bent, will form white flowers tinged with pink along the length of the canes. This rose will yield three to four excellent bloom cycles throughout the year.
“When roses produce vertical canes, the bushes send hormones to the top (or terminal) buds and cause them to open,” explained Tom Carruth, hybridizer for Weeks Roses in Upland. “But auxiliary buds exist along the cane’s length. Bending the canes defeats the gravity hormonal flow and allows the auxiliary buds to flower.”
Carruth cautioned that not all roses can be trained to do this--they must produce long enough canes, at least five feet.
Lace Cascade, introduced in 1993 in the United States by Jackson & Perkins, was developed by the late Bill Warriner for J&P; specifically as a climbing rose. Keith Zary, the current J&P; hybridizer, assisted in its development.
“This is an outstanding rose,” Zary said. “It repeats rapidly and so is rarely without flowers.”
Also very disease-resistant, Lace Cascade has been honored at rose trials in France, Switzerland and Italy.
The other noteworthy white climber is Climbing Iceberg, a “sport” of the most highly regarded white rose, Iceberg, a floribunda. A sport is a spontaneous mutation of a plant to another form, and in this case, an Iceberg bush in England produced long canes that could be trained as climbers.
“The problem with a lot of rose sports is that the climbing varieties don’t flower as well as the originals,” Carruth said.
For that reason, Weeks Roses obtained budwood from several different sports of Iceberg, studied them carefully and propagated the most floriferous. Last year, only 10,000 Climbing Iceberg plants were developed. This year, Weeks produced 12,000, and plans to increase production yearly to meet the demand.
It’s unusual, Carruth said, for consumers to have such an outstanding selection of climbing roses. “There are more excellent white climbing roses than there have ever been,” he said. “I wish the same were true for the other colors.” Although white roses are not the top sellers, Carruth believes they deserve more prominence. “White is Mother Nature’s electric light bulb,” he said. “White flowers glow in the twilight of sunset.”
With four top choices, how can you decide which to select? “It really depends on color preference and garden space,” Carruth said. He selected Sally Holmes for his personal garden in Altadena. “She’s a great rose and I love her keeping quality,” he said.
Although Zary also regards Sally Holmes as “a fantastic plant,” he will plant Lace Cascade in his personal garden. “I’m a little prejudiced since I helped developed this rose.”
Both experts offer a few suggestions for success with whatever variety is planted:
1--Plant in full sun and be sure to provide support for the canes that will form. Arch the canes so their tips point down to the ground. Zary said the canes of Lady of the Dawn will quickly become brittle so it’s best to train them within a few months of their formation.
2--Be patient. Climbing roses spend their first year developing strong root systems and rarely flower. Expect to see some the second year, but full production begins in the third year.
3--Don’t prune climbers for several years. Check with rose experts or rose books about pruning climbers since they require different pruning techniques than other types.
4--Fertilize and water the same as other roses. Fertilize once monthly in early spring, late spring and fall. Don’t feed in summer’s heat and after October. Water deeply once or twice weekly, more in hot or windy weather.
