Are you looking to add a touch of beauty and elegance to your garden? Look no further than climbing roses. These enchanting plants can cover vertical surfaces with their alluring flower shapes, hues, and fragrances. However, it’s important to choose the right cultivars for your garden. Let’s explore the best climbing rose varieties that will elevate your blooms and transform your outdoor space into a floral paradise.
Choosing the Perfect Climbing Roses
Before selecting any climbing roses or planting them, take a moment to analyze the space or structure you want them to fill. Consider the size and background color of the walls or fences in your garden. Creamy roses may be lost against a whitewashed wall, while red blooms may disappear against red brick. Additionally, climbing roses prefer deep, well-nourished clay soils and a sunny position. Make sure they have enough space and aren’t competing with overhanging growth or nearby trees and hedges. However, some climbing roses can cope well on poorer soils and even flower in light shade.
Fragrance is Key
When it comes to climbing roses, fragrance often tops the list of requirements. You want to be able to enjoy the delightful scent while basking in your garden. So, choose a rose that can be enjoyed fully at a suitable height for catching those perfumes.
12 Best Climbing Roses for Elevated Blooms
Now, let’s dive into the charming varieties that made our list. These climbing roses offer a range of colors, fragrances, and vertical growth capacities, ensuring there’s something for everyone.
1. Bridge of Sighs (Harglowing)
- Height: 10ft
- Spread: 10ft
- Color: Peach flowers
Bridge of Sighs is a must-have for any rose garden focused on shades of apricot, peach, and coral. With pretty orange buds and semi-double peachy flowers against coppery foliage, this medium-sized climber is a true beauty. It repeat-flowers well from summer to fall and can tolerate partial shade.
2. Chawton Cottage (Harxel)
- Height: 8ft
- Spread: 8ft
- Color: Pink and red flowers
For those looking to refresh their cottage garden, Chawton Cottage is the perfect choice. This delicate rose, named to mark the 70th anniversary of novelist Jane Austen’s House Museum, features moderately scented semi-double blooms with pearly pink petals flushed with red at the center.
3. ‘Compassion’
- Height: 10ft
- Spread: 6ft
- Color: Apricot flowers
If you prefer a shapely hybrid tea-style rose flower, ‘Compassion’ is ideal. With its richly colored coppery-apricot roses, this cultivar offers a retro look. It’s great for roses around doors or windows and provides vigor, repeat-flowering, and a superlative scent.
4. Claire Austin (Ausprior)
- Height: 8ft
- Spread: 5ft
- Color: White flowers
Introduced in 2007, Claire Austin makes a vigorous and healthy climber. Its large creamy white flowers with a strong myrrh scent open from cupped, lemon-tinted buds. This English rose is perfect for freestanding obelisks, pillars, walls, and fences.
5. Golden Gate (Korgolgat)
- Height: 8ft
- Spread: 6ft
- Color: Yellow flowers
Golden Gate offers disease-resistant, free-flowering, and relatively compact plants adorned with fragrant, semi-double blooms of bright medium yellow. It’s a cheery variety that will brighten up any garden. Don’t forget to deadhead the blooms to encourage hip production.
6. ‘New Dawn’
- Height: 10ft
- Spread: 8ft
- Color: Pink flowers
‘New Dawn’ is a classic climbing rose with shapely, pale pink, perfumed blooms. It has been a favorite since 1930 and continues to charm gardeners. This rose thrives in the light shade of a north-facing wall and is tolerant of poorer soils.
7. ‘Reveil Dijonnais’
- Height: 10ft
- Spread: 6ft
- Color: Red and yellow flowers
‘Reveil Dijonnais’ is a dynamic climbing rose that will bring a splash of color to your garden. With its semi-double cupped flowers boasting a lively cherry red edging and bold yellow center, this rose is a treat for the eyes. It can brighten up a north-facing wall and tolerates poorer soils.
8. The Pilgrim (Auswalker)
- Height: 8ft
- Spread: 6ft
- Color: Yellow flowers
The Pilgrim is a compact climber with cup-shaped yellow blooms that open fully to flat rosettes of primrose, creating an eye-catching display. On warm days, its fragrance is sweet and pleasing. This rose is a healthy, fast-growing option for a burst of sunshine yellow.
9. Summer Loving (Raw1152)
- Height: 7ft
- Spread: 6ft
- Color: Red flowers
For dramatic garden color schemes, Summer Loving is a standout choice. Its semi-double blooms present a deep cherry red with cream, purple, and cherry stripes. This eye-catching climber offers extreme flower power and good disease resistance.
10. Bathsheba (Auschimbley)
- Height: 10ft
- Spread: 6ft
- Color: Apricot/yellow flowers
Bathsheba is a new English rose introduced in 2022. It stands out for its fragrant, quartered blooms packed with apricot, yellow, and peachy pink petals. Flowering continues all summer, and this vigorous climber is perfect for transforming a vertical corner of your garden.
11. Gertrude Jekyll (Ausbord)
- Height: 8ft
- Spread: 5ft
- Color: Pink flowers
Gertrude Jekyll is a highly fragrant climbing rose with large, fully double rose-pink blooms and a classic rose scent. It flowers reliably through summer and fall and is ideal for pillars, walls, and obelisks. Ensure it’s positioned in an open spot away from overhanging trees.
12. ‘Guinée’
- Height: 20ft
- Spread: 10ft
- Color: Deep red flowers
‘Guinée’ is a deep red climbing rose that may not have the dark maroon hues of ‘Souvenir du Docteur Jamain,’ but it is easier to grow. With a stiff but vigorous habit, this rose works best when mingled with other roses and honeysuckles. The velvety red blooms make it a worthwhile addition to any fragrant garden.
Conclusion:
When it comes to climbing roses, the choices are endless. Whether you prefer delicate pastels, vibrant reds, or golden hues, there’s a climbing rose variety that will captivate you. Consider the size of your garden, the background color of your walls, and the fragrance you desire. With careful selection and nurturing, these climbers will add height, scent, and color to your outdoor space, creating a truly enchanting garden.