6 Step Climbing Rose Tying Method with Gertrude Jekyll on a Brick Arch

Why the cane angle matters

A cane left upright on a Gertrude Jekyll rose usually flowers at its tip. When that same cane is drawn toward the horizontal, sap flow changes and lateral buds along the length are encouraged to break, each one capable of sending up a flowering shoot the following June. Rose growers call this apical dominance, and it explains the care given to the angle of every main cane.

A brick arch suits that habit. Its curve lets a long stem follow the face of the masonry and reach the crown at a shallow angle, so bloom can appear lower down the structure. Gertrude Jekyll, bred by David Austin and released in 1986, is a vigorous shrub commonly sold as a climber because it makes long, flexible canes for a structure two to three metres high. The flowers are strong rose-pink rosettes with the Old Rose scent associated with the variety, and deadheading keeps repeat bloom coming through the season.

Steps one and two: select the framework, then fan it

Start with the canes the plant has already made. On an established Gertrude Jekyll, keep four to six main canes that are pencil-thick or stronger and arise from the base. Thinner growth is unlikely to carry a flowering load well on an exposed arch, so remove it at the crown with clean secateurs. Felco No. 2 or No. 6 bypass secateurs will cut canes up to around 25mm without crushing the stem.

The next job is to spread the chosen canes from the base so the brick face is covered evenly. Send two canes left along the arch, two right, and let the remaining stems fill the middle as they extend. Where the structure allows it, hold each cane below 45 degrees from horizontal. The lower a cane can be pinned on the arch, the more flowering laterals are encouraged above it.

The twine question

Use soft jute or tarred marline for living rose canes. Plastic-coated wire ties cut into thickening stems and should be kept away from the permanent framework.

Jute has one useful weakness: it rots within a season or two. That decay means the tie is less likely to girdle the stem as the cane expands. A 3mm jute twine costs a few pounds for a 250m ball and will stand up to a season of weather.

Steps three and four: figure-of-eight ties and fixing distances

The figure-of-eight tie is the one knot worth knowing for this job. Pass the twine around the support first, cross it between support and cane, then loop it around the cane. The crossed section leaves a soft buffer between brick and stem, which reduces chafing when wind moves the growth.

Leave slack in the tie. A simple loop pulled tight can saw into the bark of a Gertrude Jekyll cane within eighteen months, creating an entry point for canker. The stem needs room to expand while still being held close to the arch.

On a brick arch, the tie usually connects to vine eyes drilled into mortar joints or to galvanised wire run between eyes at 45cm intervals. Fix each main cane every 30 to 45cm along its length. Sparse tying lets the cane bow away from the structure in the first gale, where it may snap at the base. Dense tying takes far longer and restricts the small movement that helps the stem strengthen.

On a 2.4m arch leg, allow five or six fixing points for each main cane. That count gives enough grip for wind without covering the rose in knots.

Vine eyes screwed into pre-drilled and plugged mortar joints hold better than eyes hammered into brick, which can spall the face. Use a 6mm masonry bit and brown wall plugs set into the joint for an arch you want to keep sound.

This is also the stage where planting combinations can start to matter. Gertrude Jekyll has a strong pink that can clash with some clematis often planted on the same arch, even when the tying itself is correct.

Step five: bend long new canes in late summer

Late summer is the safer window for bending new growth. In August and September, the current season’s canes on Gertrude Jekyll are still green and pliable, so they can be guided down and around the arch curve. By November the same cane has lignified, becomes stiff, and may crack at the base when pulled toward horizontal.

Work each bend slowly. Hold the cane in both hands, ease it through the arc over several seconds, and stop when resistance builds. Tie it where it sits comfortably, then come back a week later to lower it another stage if the cane allows.

Forcing a cane flat in one movement can split the cambium even when the outside looks intact. That hidden split often appears as dieback the next spring. If a cane refuses the curve, tie it at the steepest angle it accepts and shorten it back to an outward-facing bud during the dormant prune.

Step six: the winter check and the wood to remove

Between December and February, the leafless rose shows every tie and every crossing cane clearly. Cut away ties that have rotted through. Any tie that has tightened as the stem thickened should be replaced with a looser figure-of-eight.

This is the time to shorten flowered laterals as well. Cut them back to two or three buds from the main cane. On a repeat-flowering climber, those short laterals are where the next year’s bloom is carried.

If the plant has produced a strong replacement from the base, remove one of the oldest main canes entirely. Gertrude Jekyll renews well, and rotating out a tired four-year-old cane for a vigorous one-year-old keeps flowering lower on the arch over the long term.

Seal larger cuts of 15mm and above with wound paint only when rose canker has been a problem in the bed. On clean stock, a clean angled cut above a bud heals without help.

The RHS lists Gertrude Jekyll as fully hardy across the UK to around minus 15 degrees, so an open arch rarely needs winter protection for the canes themselves. The tie check still matters because jute becomes brittle in hard frost, and a January gale can load every fixing at once.

A worked arch: 2.4m high and 1.2m wide

Take a standard galvanised steel or oak arch, 2.4m to the crown and 1.2m wide, with one Gertrude Jekyll planted at a single leg. In year one, the plant may produce three usable canes of 1.5m. Fan all three up the planted leg, tied at 40cm spacings. That gives four ties per cane and twelve ties in total.

By the end of year two, those canes may have passed the crown and started down the far leg, while the plant has produced two or three new basal canes. At that stage you may be tying six canes at five fixing points each, around thirty ties, while new growth is bent over the top curve in early autumn.

Year three is usually when the arch reads as covered. Laterals from the horizontal sections flower along both legs and across the crown, and the dormant prune becomes an annual edit of ties, laterals, and old framework wood.

Thirty figure-of-eight ties a year on one arch, replaced annually, use perhaps fifteen metres of 3mm jute. A single 250m ball covers more than a decade on that one arch. The cost stays small; the visible difference is whether the flowering wood remains free to thicken.