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.

Here is a list of the Climbing & Rambling roses we are stocking for 2021