Some friends in Connecticut are lucky to have a nice bush of the rose ‘Heritage’.
Few roses have flawlessly graceful, fragrant blossoms on a bush without functional defects, but ‘Heritage’ is such a rose. Its sole shortcoming is a rangy habit. It tends to throw rampant shoots that aren’t quite stiff enough to support themselves - though it’s not quite a climber either. What ‘Heritage’ needs is a low fence to sprawl over.
In my friends’ Connecticut garden ‘Heritage’ grows beside a boulder, and so we tried the old technique of pegging the long shoots over the rock. In March we cut out everything but last year's long shoots and fanned them over the boulder. Their ends were tied with twine to pegs driven into the ground.
Pegging is a nineteenth century method that was used with the Hybrid Perpetuals. The theory is that roses tend to send short spurs bearing flowers from the portions of the main branches that grow horizontally. I’ve found this to be true with climbing roses.
Back with results in June.
Few roses have flawlessly graceful, fragrant blossoms on a bush without functional defects, but ‘Heritage’ is such a rose. Its sole shortcoming is a rangy habit. It tends to throw rampant shoots that aren’t quite stiff enough to support themselves - though it’s not quite a climber either. What ‘Heritage’ needs is a low fence to sprawl over.
In my friends’ Connecticut garden ‘Heritage’ grows beside a boulder, and so we tried the old technique of pegging the long shoots over the rock. In March we cut out everything but last year's long shoots and fanned them over the boulder. Their ends were tied with twine to pegs driven into the ground.
Pegging is a nineteenth century method that was used with the Hybrid Perpetuals. The theory is that roses tend to send short spurs bearing flowers from the portions of the main branches that grow horizontally. I’ve found this to be true with climbing roses.
Back with results in June.
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