Climbers that won't quit: Re: I'm afraid to even think about pruning New Dawn next spring

» CarolWallace - Re: I'm afraid to even think about pruning New Dawn next spring

In response to message posted by stlgal:
Pruning! Yes - the real fear for me was pruning at the wrong time and having that late frost come along. It happened last year, but this year I got it right.

I have a sort of mantra that runs through my head as I prune the climbers (or any other roses, for that matter. You have to go at it carefully and systematically. The first thing I do is get rid of anything thinner than a pencil. Then I get rid og any canes that cross others - they will only eventually interfere with air circulation and encourage fungal problems. Then I ruthlessly cut off canes that are going the wrong way. Finally I cut out the older canes, leaving younger and more flexible ones that I can let grow more in a lateral fashion - the more horizontal the growth, the more buds the plant puts out. Notice how few flowers you see on an upright cane?

So my spring pruning is pretty tadical - but that is what Mark always recommended and I found that as scary and small as my remaining plant seems when I'm done (and I'm generally down to about three long canes that I spread in a sort of fan shape over my arbor - it starts to put out growth like mad and then flowers fabulously all season.

And that isn't nearly as drastic as what I do to the Austin roses, which usually end up with about three or four canes about 18" tall when I'm done. They are still 6' tall at season's end.

I grow clematis through everything. I have a Jackmanii growing through a golden chaemacyparis, and (big mistake) a reddish violet one whose name I can't recall growing through a red Japanese maple - the mistake being that the flowers are the same color as the leaves. I have a huge clematis, "The President" growing in and through my garden of heirloom roses. And on my New Dawn I have Duchess of Edinburgh as well as a sweet autumn clematis. The reason it works is that both are of the type that you cut down to about a foot tall at the same time you prune the roses. So everything else that's old is cut off and pulled away. So the trick is to choose the type clematis that gets pruned down in spring.

Have you ever seen roses trained along chains? Sort of a swag effect. like using three posts with one in the center of the bed and one at each end and chains that slightly droop between them. Train the laterals from the New Dawn that want to go that way to go along the chain and you get a gorgeous effect. I saw a photo of it done in Queen Mary's rose garden several years ago and have been tempted ever since.

-- posted by CarolWallace