Rambling into Winter: How to care for your rambling roses
- Elizabeth Sawday
- Oct 18, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Nov 28, 2025
Rambling roses can be a great addition to any reasonably sized garden. If you need to cover an ugly wall or fence, or grow something up a dead tree, then a rambler will do the trick very quickly.
About rambling roses
Ramblers can grow up 10ft in one year and produce a mass of flowers from late May to July. Some will reach up to 50ft, like the Kiftsgate rose. While others will only get to around 20ft, like Rambling Rector or Paul's Himalayan Musk.
Most colours are available and there is even a relatively thornless one called Veilchenblau, and some semi-evergreen varieties like Alberic Barbier. The flowers are usually small and single, but varieties such as Cecile Brunner, Albertine and Felicite et Perpetue have more complex blooms.
However there are things that the amateur rose grower needs to know. These varieties only flower once on the growth they have made in the previous year, unlike climbing roses that flower on old and new growth. Sometimes you will get a small flush of flowers towards the end of the season, but they are mainly a 4-6 week wonder.
Can rambling roses climb?
Despite what some people may say, rambling roses are not suitable for an arch or small trellis because of their size and also their vicious thorns. To complicate things more, there is also a group of repeat flowering ramblers which do not normally get as big as the old fashioned ones and give you flowers throughout the summer to greater and lesser degrees including:
Open arms
Little Rambler
Perennial Blus
PerennialBlue
Super Fairy
Rambling Rosie
Lilac Bouquet
These varieties should be treated as climbers as they behave the same, but tend to have the smaller old fashioned open flowers. The big difference about ramblers (apart from those mentioned above) is the pruning.
How to prune rambling roses
These are the only roses that you should really attack during Autumn/Winter, rather than the Spring. The tendency is to leave them for year after year and then suddenly realise that they have taken over the garden.
They gather a lot of dead wood over the years and it becomes almost impossible to get to it once all the new leaves start growing in the spring.
In the Autumn it is still possible to distinguish the new wood, which the rose will flower on the following year, from the old wood which can now be cut away.
Doing this each year and tying in the new growth will stop the accumulation of deadwood over the years. So you see, it's all quite simple really.
Learn more about Rambling roses
Want to learn more about how to grow and care for your rambling roses? Why not come to one of our rose workshops. If you're local, we also offer at-home rose pruning services where one of our experts can do your winter pruning and give you some hand-on tips.
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