The joy of climbing roses

Climbers can be divided into two groups: non-repeat flowering and repeat flowering. As the name suggests, non-repeat flowering climbers bloom just once in summer for a few weeks. But repeatflowering climbers go on throughout summer and early autumn, only stopping when the frosts start.

We grow a huge range of repeat-flowering climbers and ramblers in our garden and they come in all the colours of the rainbow, except blue. They can be grown on pergolas, pillars, walls and even as free-standing specimens. If you grow them near a wall, spread the roots out away from the wall and water during dry weather.

Among the best are ‘Compassion’, still going strong nearly 50 years since it was introduced, yellow ‘Golden Gate’, ‘Alibaba’, a beautiful,

scented variety with a novel colour, and ‘Lullaby’, a very healthy pink. For something different try ‘Camelot’. It's fragrant and has pink veining on the petals. Coming in the next few years will be the first climbing persica hybrids in yellow with bright red eyes. And two of the best repeat-blooming ramblers are ‘Perennial Blue’ and ‘Rambling Rosie’.

Repeat-flowering climbers produce blooms on this year’s growth, so in spring prune them back by about a third of last year’s growth.

Most of us have marvelled at the sight of neglected old climbing roses such as ‘Dorothy

Perkins’, ‘Excelsa’ and ‘Albertine’ growing in long-abandoned ruins year after year. These are non-repeat flowering roses and look wonderful for a few weeks of summer. These varieties put out shoots this year on which they’ll flower the following year. They should be pruned after flowering by removing this year’s shoots completely or near to ground level, allowing the new growth to grow and produce flowers next year.

The patio/mini climbers were originally developed by Chris Warner. He introduced some excellent varieties, such as ‘Laura Ford’,

a yellow with some pink edging, ‘Warm Welcome’ in orange and ‘Summertime’,

a beautiful yellow. His latest introduction is ‘Onward and Upward’ in a shade of peach.

A climbing rose is the perfect cloak for a garden arch

For a smaller variety try ‘Onward and Upward’ ‘Lullaby’ growing on a trellis

‘Perennial Blue’ is a rambler worth growing

‘Camelot’ is fragrant