GARDENS IN TAUPO

Taupo Times, Volume I, Issue 48, 10 December 1952, Page 6

GARDENS IN TAUPO

CLIMBING ROSES

(By

"Flora.")

Every garden should have a few climbing moses. Apart from their ability to cover fences with a mass of colour they will give an abundance of blooms for decorative purposes. A climber will give many years service if well grown, so prepare your ground thoroughly. Plant at least .six inches away from the support. If more than one rose plant is to be grown on a wall, allow them to foe at least ten feet apart. " One of the most suitable supports for the climbing-rose is a specially erected wire fence about six feet high. Strong posts, or better still, inch pipes placed every six feet. Connect these with heavy gauge > wire spaced about fourteen inchds. Should any of my readers be in Napier, visit the Kennedy Park Rose 'Ga-rdens, and you will see the climbers growing to perfection on such a support. As soon as the new shoots or canes are long enough they can be bent and tied into a horizontal position; till the frame-work of the plant resembles the ribs of a fern. •Canes Will often die if laid down too flat. On the other hand if left to grow straight up, they will only Hower at the top, and the beauty will be lost. Tie them down, and every eye on the upper side of the t>ranch will break into growth, and most of them will produce flowers. Should you be growing your roses against a paling fence, a small strap of leather round the stem can be secured with tacks. A trellis offers tio trouble but a pergola sometimes lias wide spaces to bridge; a few wires will give ample support. The pruning of climber s consists of removing the old and unwanted wood from the base; but only remove these when absolutely necessary, as in the case of over crowding or of them dying back; because a climbing rose differs from the dwarf in its habit, and will go on producing good flowers from the old wood for many years. Also prune back the laterals from the main shoots to within two or three eyes of their fcase. In fact, some growers advocate the cutting back of the lateral to as close to the main cane as possible. To me, that sounds a little drastic. •Climbers are of two types. Firstly, those that are climbing in habit right from the time they germinate from seed. Examples are PauPs Scariet, Black Boy, Nancy Haywood, etc. The second type are those that have been produced by a variation in groVth of some branch of a dwarf variety; fthereby a long flexible cane has appeared. Instead of flowering at the end, such •cane usually flowers on side shoots, or laterals. Growth buds taken from such a cane, and inserted into a s.fcock, often continue to show climbing growth, and thus a new climbing variety is produced. For example: CI Daily Mail Scented; CI Edouard Herriot. The following list contains some well worth climbers, to my mind all lovely : — Madam Pierre S du Pont, intense yeliow. * Texas Centennial, forick red buds. Oainty Bess, a single rose, but a Iqvely pink. PauPs Lemon Pillar, lemon yeliow. Cupid, a single blush pink. Cecil Brunner, a Polyantha, rose prnk. Mrs C. Van Rossem, Grange and apricot flushed on a yeliow ground. Emily Gray, semi-double, golden yeliow. .Matador, Deep Crimson. The National Rose Society of New Zealand has taken for its inc^t© i4To implani roses into the hearts and gardens of the people/'