The 60-Second Tying Trick Gardeners Swear By for Twice as Many Rose Blooms
Tying roses horizontally can make for a dreamy, abundant display
Grown for their color, scent and form, roses are unsurprisingly hugely popular and widely grown. To get the best from your roses, it's recommended to irrigate, fertilize and prune, but there is something else you can do to encourage more blooms, which is to tie roses horizontally.
Over my nearly 20 years of professional horticultural experience, I have cared for and trained countless roses, but there is always more to learn. To get further advice, I spoke to two experts in the field for tips on training roses horizontally.
If the thought of tying roses horizontally seems a bit daunting, you need not worry, as it is actually much simpler and quicker than it sounds, especially if you have some soft plant ties, available from Amazon, to hand. However, for those new to gardening or growing roses, the basics of watering, feeding and deadheading will be more than adequate to ensure a stunning display.
Why Horizontal Rose Training Encourage More Blooms
If you are wondering what is meant by horizontal rose training, it is simply the method of bending and training a rose's stems laterally rather than letting them grow naturally upward, which results in more flower buds.
To understand the plant physiology behind this method, I asked James Hearsum, President & CEO of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, why it encourages more flowering stems and blooms.
He explains, ‘The reason is hormonal. In an upright stem, the growing tip produces the hormone auxin, which reinforces apical dominance (the growth of a single leading point on a plant) and suppresses dormant buds lower down the stem.
'Bending the stem sideways reduces that dominance and changes the balance between auxin and cytokinin, and strigolactones. More buds along the stem are then released to grow upward as short flowering shoots.'
James Hearsum is an accomplished horticulturist and leader with a proven track record of advancing botanical and community-focused organizations. Since 2020, Hearsum has brought his extensive horticultural experience and dynamic leadership to Massachusetts Horticultural Society, continuing to advance excellence in horticulture and community engagement.
Which Rose Types Benefit from being Trained Horizontally?
If you grow roses in your backyard and want to know whether horizontally training your rose bushes or climbers would produce more blooms, Laura Butera, Lead Designer at Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, clarifies, ‘It works best with the long, flexible growers, such as climbers and ramblers.
'Some of the taller, more pliable shrub roses respond nicely, too. Compact bush roses, like hybrid teas, aren't great candidates because their stems are short and stiff.’
This 'lavender crush' climbing rose from Fast Growing Trees would make the perfect candidate to train horizontally.
Laura Butera is the Lead Designer for the Philadelphia Flower Show at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, where she shapes horticultural experiences that connect people, plants, and place. A Philadelphia native, she grew up attending, and competing in, the Flower Show, a tradition that continues to inspire her work today.
The Best Time to Train Roses Horizontally
Before we discuss how to train your roses horizontally, it is important to determine the best time of year to apply this method.
James suggests that even though ‘normally done in late winter, it can also be applied mid-summer to vigorous new stems,' making July an ideal time.
How to Tie Roses Horizontally in Your Garden
After years of pruning all sorts of roses and battered and scratched hands and forearms, a pair of thick yet dexterous gloves or gauntlets and the right garden tool are essential. With elbow-length protection for your arms, HANDLANDY long leather thorn-proof gardening gloves are available to purchase from Walmart.
A pair of bypass garden pruners such as Felco F2 Pruning Shears, available from Amazon, will make light work of deadheading roses and cutting back stems up to one inch. However, for removing thicker stems, garden loppers or a pruning saw are recommended.
To start with, it can be helpful to stand back and observe the rose you want to train laterally, so you can plan which stems to gently bend sideways and tie in, and whether they naturally want to bend to the left or the right.
However, James advises to ‘avoid sharp bends or rigid older stems, which may split’ and that ‘the stem does not need to be perfectly horizontal: even a broad fan or shallow angle can improve bud break. The result is flowers distributed along the whole stem, rather than clustered mainly at the top.'
With a rough plan in mind, you can then, if required, install plant supports including vine eyes and training wires to attach the stems, such as a TooTaci turnbuckle wire tensioner kit, available from Amazon.
Alternatively, you may be able to slide a wooden trellis carefully behind your rose to tie the canes to. Highly durable and weather-resistant, Dura-Trel Lancaster trellis is available from Home Depot.
To secure the stems to the training wires or trellis, gently bend them to the desired position 12-18 inches apart and tie them in. Laura recommends using ‘soft twine or garden ties, nothing that could cut into the stem as it thickens’. Long Soft Plant Ties are available to purchase from Home Depot.
When bending the rose stems, it is important to be aware that under tension, they can slip and snap back to their original position, potentially causing harm. For this reason, wearing gloves and eye protection is advised at all times.
Once tied in, you can step back and wait for the laterally trained canes to develop new vertical growth and blooms. Depending on the time of year, this may also be an ideal moment to fertilize your rose.
For example, March or April, when the new season’s leaves begin to open fully, is the perfect time to apply a spring feed, such as well-rotted manure or a rose-specific fertilizer such as natural organic rose bloom granular plant food available from Burpee.
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Prized for their delicate blooms and petals, roses are, in fact, incredibly tough and can generally be grown as low as USDA zone 4, meaning that when planted in the ground, they can tolerate temperatures as low as -20 to -30°F.
Furthermore, when necessary, roses can also tolerate a hard or rejuvenation prune down just 12 inches above the ground, which is much more severe than many of us think they can cope with. From bushes to standards, our specialist feature on pruning roses will help you feel confident in cutting back your roses for the best summer display.
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