The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California
Small Home Landscaping
In cold regions, roses are given winter protection by mounding the soil around the base of the stems to a foot or more. If more protection is the rule in your locality, add hay, straw or leaves on top of the soil. All this must be removed the following spring. Don't put on any covering until late in autumn. The first several frosts are needed to put the plants to sleep. It's the cold weather of mid-winter which does the damage.
Climbing and rambler roses are important in landscaping as they cover trellises, arbors and fences. They provide a background for flower borders, a screen for privacy or covers for a bank or walls.
The hardiest are found among the ramblers. Except for this, there is little to choose between a climber or a rambler rose, so far as appearances go. A rose cannot climb in the sense that a vine can; it must be tied to supports. You can tie a rambler up as well as a climber and accomplish the same purpose. The other possible difference is that the rambler will grow a large number of stems of pencil thickness (called canes) in a season; the climber, a lesser number and, in most varieties, these are heavy and with wicked thorns.
Another class, called everblooming, consists of varieties of hybrid teas and polyanthas which have outstripped their bush habit and become tall-growing. Their culture is slightly different. On the whole, they are not as hardy as the regular climber or rambler.
Regular climbers and ramblers produce their flowers on the canes of the previous year. This is the first thing you must learn about their culture if they are to flower profusely. They are not pruned the same time as the regular bush roses discussed. Climbers and ramblers are pruned in late summer or just after they flower. In pruning, remove the canes which carried the llowers. Cut out right at the ground. At this time the new canes for next year's flowers are growing. This is not to say that if you do not prune, there will be no flowers. But it does mean that, left unpruned, these roses become unmanageable and pruning then becomes difficult.
The everblooming types previously referred to are pruned in spring with the regular bush roses. But, instead of cutting the whole plant back, you retain the main tall stems and merely shorten, by half, the shoots which grow on the main canes. Otherwise, their culture and that of the regular climbers and ramblers is the same as for all roses.
