Climber or rambler?

A froth of roses scrambling over an arbour or smothering a wall, filling the air with a heavenly rich scent, turn a garden into a romantic paradise. Among the many climbing rose varieties in our garden centre, though, you'll find both climbers and ramblers – so what's the difference?

• rambling roses usually flower just the once, in a huge and spectacular display, with clusters of smaller flowers
• climbers are a little more restrained, but they'll flower throughout summer producing larger individual flowers
• ramblers tend to produce lots of whippy young growth from the base: they're generally more 'tangled' looking.
• climbers are more sculptural, with stiff main branches often forming brown bark, like trunks - and secondary younger green branches
• ramblers are pruned by cutting out around a third of the oldest stems each year after flowering right to the base, to encourage plenty of healthy young growth: train horizontally for more flowers
• climbers are pruned into an arching horizontal framework of permanent mature branches in winter,cutting back sideshoots to two or three buds to encourage plenty of blossoms next year.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in Bridport for more information and advice about climbing and rambling roses.