June, 1919 
19 
THE FIFTY BEST CLIMBING ROSES 
As Selected After Several Years of Tests and Experiments With Upward of Two Hundred 
and Fifty Varieties — Characteristics, Culture and Uses 
J. JENNINGS 
C LIMBING roses have claimed the atten¬ 
tion of every great hybridizer since their 
introduction, but it is during the past twenty 
years that the greatest improvement has been 
made. Here in our own country, the results 
obtained by such men as Captain George C. 
Thomas, Jr., and Dr. Van Fleet are shining 
examples of our progress along these lines. 
The aim which I believe has acted as a 
great incentive to these men is to produce an 
everblooming climber—^that is to say, a rose in 
which are combined the strong climbing char¬ 
acteristics of the wichuraiana type, with the 
persistent blooming qualities of the tea and 
hybrid tea. While, so far as my researches go, 
this has never actually been accomplished, some 
of Capt. Thomas’s seedlings give wonderful 
promise in this re¬ 
spect. It has been my 
good fortune to ob¬ 
serve many of them in 
the testing ground, 
and of these, at least 
one is more or less 
free blooming through¬ 
out the summer. It 
has not, however, de¬ 
veloped the long, vig¬ 
orous shoots that are 
generally associated 
with a typical climb¬ 
ing rose. 
Climbing Hybrid Teas 
After some years of 
observation and test¬ 
ing I do not regard 
the many climbing 
forms of hybrid teas 
and teas as desirable, 
with perhaps one or 
two exceptions (nota¬ 
bly Climbing Lady 
Ashtown), simply be¬ 
cause they do not rank 
as climbers. If some 
of them do succeed in 
sending up a few long 
shoots, then such 
plants are invariably 
very shy in blooming. 
Climbing Lady Ash¬ 
town is an exception; 
there is a splendid 
specimen in the vicin¬ 
ity of Philadelphia, fully 12' to 15' tall, trained 
in pillar form and literally covered with won¬ 
derfully fine flowers which are just as shapely 
and colorful as the bush form. After the 
spring burst, this variety will give a scattering 
of blooms in September, and so it is worthy of 
a place even in a small garden. 
If the climbing hybrid teas are pruned as 
severely as is necessary in the wichuraiana and 
multiflora classes, they will very often refuse 
to develop any long shoots, reverting in fact to 
the bush form. Therefore I would advise but 
very slight pruning of this class unless some 
strong basal or side shoots are apparent, in 
which case the oldest wood can be cut away 
to that point. 
The comparatively limited blooming season 
of the average climbing rose, approximately 
ten to fourteen days, may be responsible for 
their lack of popularity among the avowed 
bush-rose lovers. To many, therefore, it will 
come as a pleasant surprise to know that it is 
easily possible by careful selection of even as 
few as twelve varieties, to obtain a constant 
succession of flowers for almost two months. 
It was the search for this information that 
prompted me to make daily observations of 
over two hundred and fifty varieties, generally 
listed as climbers, covering a period of four 
seasons. Even during the first season it be¬ 
came apparent that synonyms were plentiful 
and some kinds were decidedly useless as 
climbers. Unfortunately also, many have been 
introduced in which I have been unable to de¬ 
tect even one redeem¬ 
ing feature and so 
have marked them to 
discard. Please re¬ 
member that in this 
matter, as well as 
through the rest of the 
present article, I am 
speaking of my own 
personal experiences 
and observations. 
Deceptive Names 
Of these culls, to 
show how little faith 
we should attach to 
names, I might men¬ 
tion: 
Non Plus Ultra 
(Mult.), introduced 
by Weigand in 1905, 
which has a most dis¬ 
tasteful muddy purple 
color and miserable 
foliage; and Paradise 
(Wich.), introduced 
by Walsh in 1907. 
This is a decidedly in¬ 
ferior form of Ameri¬ 
can Pillar, lacking the 
bright, snappy rose 
shade, good growth 
and nice foliage. 
Strange to say, 
among those on my 
list of discard are 
two varieties that 
have been highly re- 
A variation oj the usual arbor is secured by planting pairs of slender evergreens 
such as arborvitcB, trained and tied to galvanized iron arches, in such a way that 
they form divisions between the rose lattices proper. By this scheme a pleasing 
year-round effect is obtained 
