Climbers

Climbing roses are wonderful if you have the right places to train them.  Roses don't climb in the usual sense because they have no tendrils for attaching themselves to what they're growing on.  Modern climbers must be trained over what they grow on to shape them properly.  Solid walls aren't good because they prevent air circulation.  Fences, even wire ones, are perfect, since all you really need is some place to attach them for height and lateral growth.

If you consider planting climbers, commit this to memory:  They must always be trained to arch their canes with tips pointing downward.  This shaping technique causes sap to travel the full length of canes and encourages blooms on stems all the way along.  Besides, trained this way, they're very pretty on a trellis wall or fence even when not in bloom.  When they do flower, usually as a cropper, they're a blaze of color.

When I planted my first climber, I trained it on a garden railing.  The railing is ideal in that it has posts every three feet and four equally spaced horizontal boards running the entire length.  I used fencing staples to attach the canes.  Wrong.  While the canes fit comfortably within the constraints of the holder when I attached them, two years later they had grown thicker than the metal constraints and were damaged.  Now I use the same heavy staple, but I tie a short length of expandable garden tape to it and the other end to a climbing cane.  This arrangement allows canes to expand their girth comfortably.

Before I recommend three specific climbers, let me give you a broader hint.  Sometimes rose varieties that have always grown on a bush will up and start growing like a climber.  is taken from these new growth variations, and if it tests out in trial growing conditions, it will be introduced as a climbing version of its parent.  Some great varieties have developed climbing versions of themselves.  Of the roses in my best-bet section, there are climbing renditions of Dainty Bess, Queen Elizabeth, Double Delight, First Prize, and Angel Face.  Sometimes a climbing version will outperform the bush from which it developed.  I have bushes of a rose called Sutter's Gold that perform so-so, but the climber is stupendous.  Rosarians get bad reputations for exaggeration, like fishermen or some Texans, but I swear it had 144 blooms on it at one time.

Otherwise, you might consider:

America, the rose world's gift to the Bicentennial, is the only climbing rose ever chosen All-America.  Probably because Fragrant Cloud is its mother, America is sharply fragrant.  America is classified as an orange-red because there isn't a class for coral, the true color.  It has forty to fifty petals, which distinguish themselves by their perfectly symmetrical arrangement, even in fully open blooms.

I like apricot as a color for roses.  Royal Sunset is a climber of such hue that is an august grower and producer.  Sutter's Gold is the father, so it has abundant fragrance.  The foliage is dark leathery green, and the quick-repeat blooming cycle is a real plus.

No one can seem to decide what to call Altissimo, nor how to train it.  Should it be treated as a climber, a pillar, or a large flowering shrub?  No matter.  It's a terrific blood red, seven-petaled single with golden stamens, and a house eater when trained on a trellis or as a pillar.  To top it off, it's very fragrant and lasts on or off the plant for an amazing length of time.