Overgrown old climbing rose + unknown climbing plant

Since plucking up the courage to tackle the wisteria, I'm finding gardening to be excellent fun (yet physically hard work). Armed with new (vintage 2nd hand) tools and some good leather gloves, I'm ready to take on the middle and right sections of the pergola.

There are 2 enormous and overgrown climbing roses - both are probably 20years+ in age. The canes shoot 20ft+ high into the air and loop back down with more Wisteria tightly winding its way through the canopy.

I've watched a couple of YouTube videos relating to smaller climbing roses trained along wires or fencing, but not high up across an 9ft pergola.

Other than cutting out all of the dead wood, I'm a little stuck with what I should or shouldn't cut out…?

Then… at the right hand end of the pergola, there is a very dry wirey overgrown climbing plant. I have no clue what this is or how I should prune this back? (see pics below)

I'd very much appreciate some thoughts and ideas.

Here's a photo of the whole pergola in it's current state:



Unknown plant:

 

Well your mystery plant looks like a Clematis tangutica judging of what look like old seed heads . It can be pruned down to around a foot / 30cm / lowest buds if you wish to restart it , it in the group 3 clematis pruning group which are normally cut back hard every year , its does look rather overgrown so I'd probably look at cutting back hard. That if it is a C.tangutica but it is defiantly a clematis.

Do you know if its a climbing rose or a rambler ? Climbing rose flower on new growth so can be cut right back down to the top of the pergola , but leave some and bring them down and tie them down horizontally. You'll need to remove Dead - damaged and diseased wood from it and criss-crossing branches which are rubbing against each other one branch is usually removed.

 

+1 for the Clematis, but it's impossible to specify which type without knowing what colour the flowers were. I'd just cut 1/3rd down to 24" and the rest to wherever you see good, strong, double buds emerging from the leaf axils. Then when it flowers you can post a pic and we'll be able to identify it more precisely
With the rose, the way it's wound round the upright, and the very long stems, suggest rambler blood. If there's one very obvious thick, brown older stem amongst the lower bits, cut that down to 12". That will encourage replacement growth so the plant is gradually rejuvenated. For the remaining ones on the top, as Perki says, check for damaged stems, cut below the damaged part and then tie-in what's left, spacing them out. February is a good month to treat roses and clematis to a handful of blood, fish and bone fertiliser, and a mulch 2-3" thick over the roots, but not touching the stems

 

Thanks @Perki and @noisette47 for identifying the mystery plant as a type of Clematis. Your pruning advice is a little above my understanding at the moment, but will endevour to find some good demonstration videos to best understand it. (I had thought I'd tackle the Clematis last).

We recently moved into the property and unfortunately nobody is able to tell us precisely what is growing in the garden. The neighbours only have a rough idea.

I had assumed the pergola = a climbing rose, and hadn't considered a rambler. Having just researched this, the "1st" rose does fit the rambling description, however the "2nd" rose appears to be growing up the pergola supports in a very different way (or just a different variety of rambler?). The Clematis is very tangled in the 2nd rose, so at the moment is hard to distinguish what's going on without removing the growth.

The 1st rose has around 6-8 large stems (old to newer looking). There is one very old thick, bark covered main stem. I didn't think it looked completely healthy as half the branches originating from it were dead. I'll cut this down to 12", and in doing so will remove a number of the 20ft canes.

I will endevour to cut out all dead and diseased wood, but should I also cut all side shoots back to 2 buds (1-2iches) regardless? I'm thinking about helping to clear a safe path of attack (without getting cut to ribbons). There are many criss-crossing branches too so will attempt to remove the correct ones.

I found this video showing how to prune a rambling rose. This looks similar to theheight of our rose, but is against a wall and not as overgrown. So I should bend and tie down some long pruned stems along the pergola. But should I shorten them a little or not worry about them spreading out through the Wisteria and Clematis? Also should I leave any to grow straight up, or is that not the done thing?

Thanks in advance, and sorry for silly questions (I really am trying to learn from scratch).

PS: I'll take some close-up rose photos tomorrow.

 

Not silly questions at all! Very astute ones The principle of climbing roses is to get as much growth as possible horizontal. That promotes hormones that make the plant flower all along it's stem, instead of just at the end. That's why, if possible, you 'wrap' the bendy stems around the upright of the pergola instead of just letting them grow vertically. So...yes, cut out the really old, thick stem, which will also remove a lot of dead wood. Then when you've removed any crossing and damaged stems at 'roof' level, tie the remainder as flatly as poss to the horizontals of the pergola. By all means cut sideshoots back to a couple of buds, so they don't rub on the other main stems.The longer those are the more flowers you'll have. It's entirely up to you whether you let the different plants intermingle or whether you keep them defined in their own space, but a mixture will give you all three flowers at different seasons, nearly the whole length of the pergola.
Just as with the Wisteria, don't stress You won't kill the plants!
I've tried to find a photo of a clematis stem sprouting..this is the best I can do...If you imagine it a little less well-developped...no leaves but a fat green bud either side of the brown stem...
That's what to look for. Cut just above the highest buds. That'll be OK for most Clematis types. We can fine-tune when we know exactly which type it is.

 

Amazing - thanks @noisette47. That description is very helpful. I have a feeling the original intension for the pergola was to have everything intermingling a little. It will be great to see it come alive again. (Fingers crossed)

Hopefully I'll find some free time over the next few days as the weather looks good (albeit sub zero temperatures).

 

If you are planning to thin out the plants anyway it might also be a good time to untangle them and give the pergola a new paint job before reattaching.

They do look like they need a good pruning

 

@Perki and @noisette47 I found a video showing how to hard prune a group 3 Clematis. Seems my best plan of attack is to remove all top growth before consentrating on cutting the stems back to 1-2ft as you've both described. This will certainly help reveal both roses - especially the 2nd rose which the Clematis is extremely tangled through.

:: Clematis Pruning Video Here ::

 

Thanks @Black Dog The cross beams on top the pergola have dislodged under the weight and pressure of everything growing. My intension is to make this good once everything is fully pruned. I like the way the timbers have aged naturally rather than painting them. The most I'll do is apply some clear wood treatment - but only if its wise to do so (and not poison anything growing).

 

@DevonPhil
Old wood sure has its own charm. Just make sure to repair and stabilize it well enough. You don'tont want the next storm to ruin all your hard work.

But I too would think the best plan of attack would be to vigorously prune everything down to a meter or so. The roots seem to be strong and I believe I won't take a whole year until they have reached the top once again.

 

Just hold your horses , the clematis could be a group 1 clematis which flower in spring cutting back hard now will remove all the flowers . If you're not bothered about flowers this year go ahead and cut it all back lower down . I'd wait until the weather improves first its to cold to doing anything drastic at the moment.

I do think it is a Group 3 clematis tangutica yellow flowers with fluffy seed heads, the top picture on the left resembles a old seed head

It should look like this

 

It could be anything, Perki (although Montana is unlikely. It would have overrun the whole pergola by now). All Clematis have fluffy seedheads more or less like that. The big-flowered hybrid ones are bigger and rounder, the viticellas less pronounced, but whatever it is, judicious pruning to healthy buds will ensure flowers but enable Phil to get rid of the tangled stuff on top I'm sooo looking forward to seeing what it turns out to be

 

As promised, here are some better photos.

FYI - There is (what looks like) another Clematis growing by the greenhouse which appears to my eye, a lot more like the one in @Perki 's photo above…?

I still think cutting back the large Clematis on the pergola is a good idea. But having just looked at it, it is so dry and dense, finding the correct type of buds to cut back to will be tricky.

Looking at photos of the garden from late September (from before we bought this house). Both Clematis were covered in dense follage, but hard to make out the flowers. I suspect they had all gone over by that point?


Photo 1 = Clematis by the greenhouse


Photo 2 : The pergola Clematis


Photo 3 : Rose 1 (largest Rambling Rose)


Photo 4 : Rose 2 (smaller Rambling Rose - tangling into the Clematis)