Pruning & Training a Climbing Rose Arbor
Long John Silver, a rambler bred from the wild American Prairie Rose, Rosa Setigera, is our subject on this arbor built of 2" lodgepole pine posts. (The arbor design was inspired by Graham Thomas' designs in his book Climbing Roses Old and New, designs suggested for Larch posts.) We offer here a very brief view of the plant, beginning at the point where all existing branches which covered the arbor the year previous have had their blooming side shoots or laterals trimmed back to just a few growth buds, and the training and tying in of new climbing shoots has begun. Many once-flowering climbers and ramblers produce a wealth of new long shoots, both from the base of the plant and from higher up. Once we have developed a good covering of those long shoots over the arbor, we will remove some of the oldest each year and replace them with the vigorous young canes. Some shoots from the previous year are always kept, and in this way we assure a very abundant show of bloom in the summer. Our dear friend and employee Juan works with Gregg each year on the pruning and training of all of the climbers, pillars, umbrellas and arbors in the garden. We don't know what we would do without his expert understanding of the roses.
