Dealing with a tricky old rose
QWe inherited a straggly old rambling rose with a pergola that has rotted and stems that snag us as we pass. It does flower well, but then looks awful and needs pruning. If we dig it up, what could we replace it with? Shona Matthews, Daventry, Northamptonshire
ADeciding whether to grub out a well-established and still thriving plant requires thought and is something I’ve confronted many times in my own and other people’s gardens. There are two questions to ask yourselves. First, how much do you like the rose and would you buy it, given all the many other roses out there? Second, is the garden in need of some maturity? If so, it might be worth rebuilding the pergola, pruning this rambler after it has flowered, and tying it in. You gain instant height, save a mature plant, and can add more climbers.
When we moved into our previous garden, it was derelict and a mature climbing rose sprawled all over the top part near the house. The blooms were my favourite shade of peachy apricot, and we decided to keep the rose and use it to inspire our design. Having laid a paved area by the house, we added a curving path with a border on one side and lawn on the other. A rustic pergola created a tunnel over the path and the rose was tied in and side stems pruned back. We never identified it, never regretted it, and it was still there when we left 10 years later.
Here in East Devon, we inherited a tumbledown rustic frame holding the rambling rose ‘Dorothy Perkins’. Her scentless blooms are a brash pink and she suffers from mildew, but I added Clematis ‘Étoile Violette’, rebuilt the pyramid of rustic poles three times, and annually cut away flowered stems and tied the current year’s long thorny ones down and around in late summer. Now, though, I agree with Vita Sackville-West who disliked bright-pink roses – in particular, ‘American Pillar’ and ‘Dorothy Perkins’. So we’re digging her up and look forward to reworking the border.