Ludwig’s rose corner
Rose guru Ludwig Taschner focuses on winter pruning.
Q: I trained my ‘Compassion’ climbing rose up a trellis attached to a wall but expected more flowers. How should I prune it?
Climbing roses flower best when their canes are trained horizontally because this activates the eyes all the way along the stem to sprout and flower. When a stem grows upwards, only the top two eyes sprout and then flower. If it arches downwards, it still flowers at the highest point of the bow.
At pruning time, loosely tie canes to the support or to other stems as horizontally as possible. Once the main stems are tied in place, it will be easy to identify which sideshoots on the main stems aren’t necessary and can be pruned back to about 10cm. By leaving a stub with two to three eyes, new growth will develop quickly and the best flowers will come from these shoots. Clean out twiggy growth and where a stem has forked, cut away one of the tines. Branches that are two to three years old can be retained if they’re important to the framework. Remove leaves where possible.
Q: I have ‘Deloitte and Touche’ roses that are performing so well late in this season. Must I still prune them?
You can delay pruning to the end of July and reduce watering so that they are forced to become dormant. When pruning this kind of spreading rose, don’t cut back too hard; just a trim will do, leaving plenty of twigs and as much horizontal growth as possible. The eyes sprout more evenly along horizontal stems and this produces better new growth and flowers.