Climbing Rose Madame Alfred Carriere Pruning Tips

Madame Alfred Carriere is a vigorous climbing rose reaching 7.5 meters with ease. the general pruning advice is in autumn to late winter, remove any dead, damaged, or weak-looking stems. Tie in new stems and shorten the side shoots of any flowered stems by up to two-thirds. When the plants become congested, remove one or two of the oldest stems, cutting them right back to their base. Climbing roses usually respond well to hard pruning, so those that have become very overgrown can be renovated from late autumn to late winter. First remove any dead, damaged, or weak-looking stems completely. Keeping from four to six young stems, cut all the others right back to their base. Shorten the side shoots on the remaining stems by up to a half and tie these onto the support. Why is my Madame Alfred Carriere rose not flowering? The above works fine with most positions, but if you have planted your climbing rose on a north-facing wall, the resulting flower mass will be disappointing. For north-facing growing established Madame Alfred Carriere roses with a well-supported frame of horizontal main stems we adopt a modified pruning regime of pruning hard back to the trained branches in late June after the main flush of flowers has finished. We then let the rose grow away for the rest of the season, leaving the 6-8 foot arching new growth overwinter to provide the May-June burst of flower shown in the video.