It's spring and I've got roses on my mind. I am planning on building an arbor over my bedroom window, and I would like to plant it with a climbing rose.

I am located in hot, dry Livermore California. The wall is west facing and gets no shade or shelter other than what the arbor will provide.

Does anyone have suggestions for a climber, preferably fragrant, that might not fry too badly in a situation like this? Or am I crazy to even try?

Would Crepuscule work? I have one in a pot that needs a home. It might be too big of a rose for the spot.

Here is a picture of the wall and window:

I lurk around this forum most of the time (I have young children and no time to post!), but my new-to-me garden is finally getting to the point where I can add a few big old roses, so I will probably be asking more questions in the near future. I really appreciate everyone's help and insight.

Marion

website

I had a very large Crespuscule (sadly lost to oak-root fungus) in a less-challenging but full-sun position that also did well in heat, by my standards, though the blossoms would get singed around the edges during the worst heat waves. However, I think that there aren't many that don't suffer that when the temps go over 100 for days on end. To my nose, Crespuscule was not as fragrant as other tea-noisettes. Crepsuscule can get rather large as a climber, judging by the one at the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden -- I grew mine as a free-standing shrub, 8' tall and 10' wide.

Mme. Alfred Carriere is also fragrant and a real champ in the heat (I have one -- of three -- on the west side of my house), but she is most likely way too vigorous for your situation with an arbor. Even on an 8' x 8' x 10' heavy wood trellis, she's a bit much.

One that I can definitely not recommend for a hot situation is Jaune Desprez. Though I adore it, the flowers do wilt quickly when it gets over 85 degrees or so.

On reflection, most of the tea-noisettes, except Alister Stella Grey, want to grow big -- on the order of 15' - 20' -- so keeping them contained might be a chore. Hopefully someone experienced with other kinds of roses that are also heat/sun resistant will be weighing in.

Ingrid

I had a Sombreuil that was trainable, not that massive (compared to others in the yard), and seemed quite heat tolerant (no longer here due to change of plans). It was on a pergola on the south side of the house. It's heat tolerance is rated "excellent" on HMF (2 votes) and I think there have been posts on the forum here about its heat tolerance. A nice if rather -- make that "extremely" -- thorny rose.

On April 12th the Historic Rose Garden at the Sacramento Historic City Cemetery will be having an open garden. They get hotter even than Livermore! If I were you I would definitely go to the Open Garden to see all of the roses which grow there and survive the 100+ summers - they have lots of chinas. Check out the climbers growing on the fence along the street. There will be lots of helpful people there who can answer your questions, and it is an amazingly beautiful garden.

Jackie

Ingrid, I'm sorry to hear that your Reve d'Or got cooked. I'm planning to tear out the sidewalk in the picture and build the arbor roughly 12' high, 10' wide and 4' deep, so the arbor and bed around it will be bigger than the existing bed and won't get reflected heat from the sidewalk. Also, the rose will be planted right on our graywater line, so it will get plenty of water.

I realize that it is still a gamble growing a rose in a situation like this, but I'm hard headed, and want to give it a try. I can live with the singed blossoms during the dog days of summer; after all, they look how I feel at that point in the year. I think that wall would be vastly improved by being covered with a rose. I have to try it before I give up and start fighting with a wisteria

The Cemetery open garden is on my calendar. I'm not sure I can make it as I have a two year old and a three month old and it might be a more of an outing than my traveling circus can handle.

I do get up to Sacramento pretty regularly, and I will pay special attention to the roses on the fence the next time I visit the garden. I love mutabilis; there is a beautiful one in the UC Davis Arboreturm; mine is teeny-tiny. Thanks for the suggestion.

Please don't even joke about planting a wisteria. Once you have it, it's impossible to get rid of, and will eat your house and probably the neighbor's too. If you want to get rid of it you can't because it will always sprout again, even years later.

Reve d'or and Crepuscule for me weren't that hard to keep small because neither is viciously thorny. However, a Sombreuil that already has some size and is free is not to be sneezed at. Tea-noisettes will not lose their leaves if the temps don't go below freezing for any length of time. A long, hard freeze would probably make them lose their leaves. I'm guessing here since I've never had a long, hard freeze where I live and the last few winters haven't really been cold at all.

Ingrid

If you find that you can't make it for the Open Garden, but are visiting Sacramento on some other day, please come and browse around. The cemetery is open every day except for Wednesday and Thursday, and we volunteers are here on Tuesday and Saturday mornings.

Welcome to the forum!
Laura

But have any of you thought about a way to reduce some of that reflected heat off the wall if you have space between i and the roses?

I have about 4-5 feet between my west facing wall and the rose bed and it still feels like a blast oven out there. I did plant a row of fruit trees where they can shade the bed once they grown enough (lower terrace than the roses on a slope)

But I am thinking of planting something like a bougainvillea in a root proof pot (do they make such a thing) and wrapping in on a post to reduce that heat. anyone try something like that?

Sombreuil is a rose I liked and would grow again if, by some miracle, I had space for it again.