Some Climbers For Show

By Robert B. Martin, Jr.

Editor’s Note: This article, which appeared in the July 2004 issue of Rose Lore, the newsletter of the Mesa-East Rose Society (Arizona), is reprinted with the kind permission of the author. The Editor wishes to thank the author and also Dona Martin, whose excellent photos were used in the original printing. In keeping with the color format of the Desert Rose, we have substituted color photos in lieu of the black & white photos used in the original.

With our smaller gardens of today rose growers have room for only a few climbers, if indeed they have any room for them at all. So in selecting climbers there is a need, perhaps more so than in selecting other roses, to be a little choosy. What are the best climbers and how can we you about selecting them?

One way to go about this task is to consider which climbers do well in rose shows.

Now of course only the blooms are presented in a rose show, rather than the entire plant, so in many cases it is difficult to know whether a rose that produces show-quality blooms is also a good garden specimen. Certainly this is true in other classes, such as the hybrid teas, where it is well known that serious exhibitors will often put up with faulty plants that are capable of producing show-stopping blooms. But I think this is less so in the case of climbers, because even the most crazed of exhibitors is unlikely to put up with an unmannerly, disease-prone climber, just in the hopes of winning a trophy for the best climber. So let’s take a look at what has been winning the best climber in the shows.

Accompanying this article is a chart of the top 23 climbers based on the number of trophies won during the past five years. It shows the total won, as well as the number won each year, the latter to help in identifying any trends.

At the outset, it should be recognized that the climber classes generally call for the display of roses classified as large flowered climbers. This is in keeping with the Guidelines for Judging Roses which specify that: “Only those varieties classified as Large-Flowered climbers, climbing hybrid teas and hybrid wichuranas are to be exhibited in the climber class. Those varieties that have a bush counterpart (hybrid tea, floribunda or miniature, etc.) are exhibited in the same class as their bush counterpart.”

What this means is that in selecting climbing roses for the garden, there are a number of roses with the growth habit of climbers that are not represented on my chart. For example, as indicated in the quotation, climbing versions of hybrid teas with bush counterparts are not shown as climbers. But it is well known that such climbing versions are typically inferior to their bush counterparts and I cannot think off-hand of one that I’d recommend to be grown as a climber. More importantly, it also means that a number of Old Garden Roses and shrubs that grow as climbers do not appear in the climber classes. Thus for example, the superb climbing tea ‘Sombreuil’, which I grow and love, does not appear in these charts.

Sombreuil Photo by Cliff Orent

Similarly the great modern shrub, ‘Sally Holmes’, which grows as a climber in our Southwest climate, also does not appear. So the examination of the charts of the winners of the best climbers can only paint a partial picture for the person interested in adding some climbers to their garden.

It should also be recognized that typically a show will include one class that calls for either a bloom or spray of a climber; in some cases there will be two classes, one for an individual bloom and one for a cluster or spray showing multiple blooms. It is not always clear from the show reports whether the winning entry was a single specimen or spray, so my records include the two without any differentiation. And, since winners of classes that call for individual blooms are included with winners of classes that call for sprays, there is some prejudice in these charts in favor of varieties that have both exceptional individual blooms as well as sprays.

In judging climbers, the Guidelines recognize that some climber and hybrid wichurana varieties produce blooms of true hybrid tea form, while others display a more informal form. Each specimen is therefore judged by the standards of its own variety. So, in the case of climbers there is no prejudice in favor of one form or the other.

To provide some additional perspective on the chart, it may be noted that over the five-year period shown, there have been exactly 1,000 best climber awards recorded. As can be seen from the charts, the climber class is generally a two-horse race between ‘Altissimo’ and