Please help this novice!

Hi

We recently moved into a house with a nice mature garden with several roses. I'm a novice when it comes to gardening but I'm determined to have a decent crack at learning!

There are several large roses in the garden which have come into flower. The largest one seems to be competing with some other plants but I'm not sure if these other plants are damaging the rose or not?

The first photo shows the rose as is. The second shows the protrusion of another plant out of the top. The third and fourth photos are close ups of these other plants/ weeds that are coming through.

Should i try and remove these other plants? Are they damaging the rose? How would i remove them? Anything else i should be doing?!?!

Tanks for any help you can give
Chris

 

Welcome Chris!

I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination! But the other plant looks a bit like a clematis? If so, I've got a climbing rose and a clematis competing for the same wall. They're intertwined a fair bit but I've kept them trim up until they've both started budding and flowering. I think they can get along without choking each other if you keep on top of both of them

 

Welcome to Gardeners Corner Chris. The rose is a climber and I think the other plants that are growing there are stopping it from doing that. I think from your pictures that you have more than one plant growing through the rose. The main one looks to me like a Jasmine, another climber. Are the small flowers perfumed, that would be a give away?

I think they are battling each other for prime position, so I would be inclined to leave the rose where it is and remove the others, they could be planted elsewhere in your garden, bearing in mind they would need support. To remove them you will have to trace them back to where they are growing in the soil and carefully dig them out trying not to disturb the roots of the rose too much. When the rose has become dormant later in the year, around November time you can give it a tidy up. There is a thread at the top of the 'Roses' forum that will tell you how to do it. There is also information there for looking after your roses, feeding etc.

 

OK thanks a lot for the advice

I definitely agree that there's at least 2 plants coming through the rose. One might be a Clematis / Jasmine as suggested, but the other one to me looks like some kind of creeper/vine with no flowers on it. In fact, there are instances of this plant all over the rest of the garden as well.

Is it safe to just cut this thing off near the roots and wait for it to die off? Or will I need use some kind of weedkiller?

Thanks for the help so far - this forum's really useful

 

The vine should just die off if you cut it off at the base and there'd be less risk of harming the rose and the other climber if you don't use weed killer you'll still have to untangle it all though

 

You can cut the plants off at the base but unless you dig the roots out they are likely to re-shoot.

 

Thanks wiseowl - so I can wait for the autumn and the Rose won't get damaged beforehand (I was thinking that these creepers might be 'strangling' the rose or some such).

Thanks sheal - will dig out the roots then as well

cheers all