 |
|
 |
|
|||
 |
|||
 |  |  | 
|  |
 |
Dr. Leda's Rose Journal |
 |
|
Climbing the Walls with Dr. Leda
By Dr. Leda Horticulture, O. R.
November, 2002
Harper's Index would have a field day if Lewis Lapham ever got his hands on my vital statistics. I can see it now:
- Number of hours spent by Dr. Leda mooning over photographs of climbing roses she can't possibly grow: 50,000.
- Number of gigantic house-eating climbing roses ordered by Dr. Leda for her modest suburban yard: 234.
- Number of cars that can actually back out of Dr. Leda's driveway since she planted New Dawn and Mermaid too close to the garage: zero.
Order Your Climbing Roses Online Today
We've already started to receive a large number of orders, and that's good news and bad news. The good news is we love to help you find your favorite bareroot climbing rose, and the bad news is we're afraid we'll run out! So order today and we'll reserve your climbing rose until spring, when we ship it at the date you specify.
All right, I do get carried away sometimes. But nothing in the world is more irresistible than a beautiful, fragrant climbing rose in full bloom, covering a wall or a gazebo in dramatic mounds of abundant color. Can you still remember the first time you fell helplessly, head-over-heels in love with a climber?
 |
| Don Juan |
Perhaps you were stopped in your tracks by a billowing white Kiftsgate clambering up a stone cottage in the Cotswolds, wafting clouds of sweet perfume on the early spring breeze. Maybe your brain was turned to Jello™ by a dazzlingly exotic Royal Sunset clinging to an ancient stucco villa on the sunny Cote d'Azure. Or it might have been a carefree pink Complicata rambling cheerfully along a weathered picket fence behind a quaint Nantucket whaling inn that took your breath away.
For me, it was an outrageously fragrant red Etoile de Hollande smothering my neighbor's front porch that made my knees go weak and my judgment take up residence in a crypt in Antarctica. From the moment I saw this distinguished old rose twining around the columns and arching gracefully over the doorway as its velvet flowers bloomed dark against white clapboards, I knew I was doomed.
For my first brave foray into the intimidating world of climbing roses, I decided to try Don Juan, Fourth of July, and Sally Holmes, all guaranteed to be easy, fast-growing, reliable repeat-bloomers of manageable size. I planted them in front of the porch and stepped back to admire my handiwork. I gazed proudly at the intrepid little twigs poking hopefully through the dirt, then lifted my eyes to the towering two-story wrap-around veranda they were supposed to magically cover by summer's end. I felt just the tiniest twinge of skepticism.
 |
| July 4th |
I had heard the old adage about climbers, "First year sleeps, second year creeps, third year leaps," so I knew I had to be patient. But I was thrilled when just a few months later Don Juan had produced one cane that was actually long enough to reach the porch. This was it, the moment I'd been waiting for! I rushed inside to fetch a drill, screws with eye hooks, sturdy wire, and green plastic ribbon.
Alas, the cane refused to cooperate. It stubbornly insisted on growing horizontally, nearly flat to the ground, straight out away from the house. I managed to wrestle it around in the right direction and fasten it to the bottom of the porch, where it sat twisting in anguish like a contortionist performing a painful and perverse advanced yoga posture, refusing to bloom.
Fourth of July was a little more cooperative, though like its parent Altissimo it preferred to grow vertically, straight up like a redwood tree rather than a gracefully arching climber.
 |
| Sally Holmes |
While Don Juan was growing but not blooming, Sally Holmes seemed to be putting her energy into blooming rather than growing that first year. Her enormous clusters of flowers made her look like a short stubby white Hydrangea bush. Then one day I noticed that, seemingly overnight, she'd shot out a long, gangly, 20' cane that was blooming on the tip. The single flower hovered somewhere up beyond the attic where I practically needed binoculars to see it.
The trick to training climbing roses to climb gracefully seemed to be one of the best kept secrets of rosedom. My books all showed pictures of stunningly mature, massively blooming giants that completely enveloped towers at Sissinghurst, walkways at Giverny, and entire trailer parks in Tombstone, Arizona. But stories of how they got that way managed to elude me entirely.
It's probably a little late for me now, since Lady Banks has already absconded with my back porch, Bobby Jones has devoured an entire Catalpa tree, and Dortmund seems to have taken my car to Las Vegas for the weekend. But I have great news for those of you who are just beginning to grow climbers and could use a little help with the logistics of basic training.
Jeff Cox (of HGTV fame) has come out with the most gorgeous book called Landscape With Roses (Taunton Press, 2002). It has superlatively useful, detailed instructions for training climbing roses. It's also chock full of dangerously scrumptious rose garden photos by Jerry Pavia, which include shrub roses, groundcovers, minis, and hundreds of companion plants. But the information on climbers simply can't be beat.
|
Using diagrams and photographs, Jeff Cox offers step-by-step directions for training climbers to espalier around windows, splay against trellises, arch over pergolas, or spiral up pillars. He explains exactly how to train a climbing rose to scramble up into a tree, or to grow properly against different kinds of fences (picket, wrought-iron, solid wood, cyclone, etc.). He delves into attachment techniques and the assortment of hardware needed to provide support and secure canes in place. He offers tips for encouraging canes to fan out or arch down, he warns how to avoid potential pitfalls of wall trellising, and he makes excellent use of the delightful verb "festoon." Oh, how I wish I'd had this book ten years ago.
It's November now, and my 3-year-old Sally Holmes is in full bloom: from my desk I can see several sprays of peach-colored buds draped in front of my office window. In December, when other roses are hibernating, I'll still be cutting flowers from bright my red Altissimo and snow white Climbing Iceberg. And next spring, my house will almost completely disappear beneath glorious clouds of color. Even though I had to learn things the hard way, I wouldn't trade my climbers for anything.
Everyone should experience the joys of climbing roses, and Landscape With Roses is a perfect holiday gift for beginners who may be feeling a bit intimidated by the idea of training a dozen new climbers. But even scarred old veterans like me will find interesting new design ideas and inspiration.
For example:
- Number of large trees Dr. Leda lost in Hurricane Lili: 3.
- Page in Landscape With Roses where she got the idea to grow rambling roses over the big ugly stumps: 149.
- Number of Hybrid Musk and Noisette roses she's already ordered to do the job: 17.
And rose season has barely begun!
