Dress Up Your Yard With Rambling Roses

Rambling roses are low-maintenance flowers that offer clever camouflage and old-fashioned romance.

Unlike “climbers,” whose strong stems in limited quantities generally reach no higher than 18 feet, Rebecca Sawyer-Fay wrote in an article in the current issue of Country Living, ramblers boast an abundance of long, flexible canes that typically top out at 30, even 40 feet.

Ramblers can scale trees, camouflage unsightly walls, and turn a cinder-block pump house into a garden centerpiece. Even chain-link fences become lovely when dressed in hearty ramblers.

To extend the colorful display, some gardeners team their ramblers with later-flowering clematis, particularly the large-flowered hybrids. These purple-, pink-and white-flowering vines treat rose canes as living trellises.

Canes should be secured to supports, such as wood or steel fences, pergolas of rot-resistant timber such as recycled redwood or cedar, iron or steel arches and arcades, gazebos and even small cabins. The only requirement is that the structure be strong. When training a rambler up the side of a house and over a roof, trellises of pressure-treated pine may be used, as long as the latticework is firmly affixed to the building or wall.

Rose canes should be tied at 1- or 2-foot intervals to encourage them to grow in the desired direction. Plants are best positioned about 2 feet from the structure they are to climb, and always away from the drip line of a roof or other overhang. Encourage the rose to grow in a preferred direction by inclining the plant toward the desired structure at a 45-degree angle.

While some ramblers will tolerate moderate shade, most appreciate six to eight hours of sun daily. Regular watering is essential, especially in the first three years. Ramblers need a little discipline in the early years. Start by pruning all side shoots (called laterals) in the fall to within 3 inches of a main stem, to direct energy toward the principal stems. Excess growth in a plant’s base should also be cut back.