How to Train and Grow Climbing Roses

Trellis Training

Training a climbing rose is essential in creating a cascading, heavily blooming rose specimen. While more expensive than self-pegging, trellis training adds a pretty, blooming trellis to your garden landscape.

1. Place the Trellis

   Attach the rose trellis at least 3 inches away from an outer wall. Choose a sunny location with proper drainage.
   

2. Secure the Roses

   Tie the stems of the climbing rose to the trellis with stretchy plastic plant tape as it grows throughout the year. Do not prune until the plant covers the entire trellis.
   

3. Train the Canes

   Gently bend some of the new canes, so they grow outward to cover more of the trellis.
   

4. Keep up With Pruning

   Snip off branches that are growing too thick. Cut out some of the older canes every three years and allow new, younger canes to replace them.
   

5. Prune the Weak Canes

   Remove the weak canes so the plant can focus its energy on a few solid main canes.
   

   Tip

   Always cut faded flowers to encourage more to form. Cut back climbing roses in early spring while they are still dormant. Faded roses are an excellent ingredient in potpourri.
   

Self-Pegging Roses

Climbing rose bushes contain a hormone that inhibits the growth of more than one bloom per cane. This strategy works well for the plant because it ensures that the rose won't expend unnecessary energy on creating more blooms. Unfortunately for gardeners, long canes with just one bloom are pretty unattractive.

Self-pegging is a simple process of arching the long canes of climbing roses and tying them at the base of the plant. By doing this, you use gravity to inhibit the movement of the hormone, producing as many as 30 clusters of flowers on the same cane. At the same time, self-pegging prevents your climbing rose from spreading into other areas where you don't want it to climb.

Like trellis training, self-pegging takes place over the years. While your plant will start producing more blooms immediately, you must stay vigilant to keep your roses healthy and blooming.

1. Prune the Roses

   Start by pruning your roses, removing weak growth and old leaves.
   

2. Bend the Strongest Canes

   Select the most vigorous four to six canes. Gently bend each cane in a loop, so the top of the cane meets the base. Use thick gloves to handle the canes, and secure the tips to the bottom of each cane using plastic gardeners' tape. The growing tip should be 2 to 3 inches from the base of the cane.
   

3. Work With the Smaller Canes

   When all the longer canes have been self-pegged, prune mid-sized canes and tuck them into the cage created by the longer self-pegged canes.
   

4. Adjust the Roses Annually

   Each year, inspect your older canes and replace one or two with new canes to promote healthy plants and vigorous flowering.
   

   Tip

   Self-pegging works only if your climbing roses have supple canes that bend without breaking. Only self-peg canes that are at least 8 to 10 feet long. If the canes aren't long enough, allow them to continue growing until they are. 

   It's best to self-peg during the same time of year that you'd ordinarily prune your roses (which varies depending on your location). 
   

Common Climbing Rose Varieties

• Fourth of July (Rosa 'Fourth of July'): Introduced in 1999 with candy cane coloring, disease resistance, and spicy scent; requires full sun and grows in USDA zones 5 through 10
• Eden (Rosa 'Eden'): French repeat-bloomer looks like an antique rose due to its double, cupped blooms in pink, cream, and yellow; requires full sun and grows in USDA zones 5 through 11
• American Beauty (Rosa 'American Beauty'): Deep, cupped dark pink rose that is hardy and tolerates shade; grows in USDA zones 5 to 9
• Iceberg (Rosa 'Iceberg'): Floribunda that grows vigorously up to about 15 feet and boasts profuse flowering and repeats extra-large blooms with full, ruffled blossoms; its flowers have little to no scent; grows in zones 4 to 9
• Cecile Brunner (Rosa 'Cecile Brunner'): Hybrid climbing tea rose shrub that can reach 20 feet tall and 6 feet in width with little clusters of blush-pink flowers with a sweet scent; blooms once in late spring or early summer; tolerates shade; grows in USDA zones 6 to 10