Rosarium Uetersen
My Uetersen rose has been growing in the house patio garden for four years now. It is positioned sensibly in sun underneath a sturdy pergola post - because Uetersen is a most beautiful, well-known climbing rose.
Except that my Uetersen rose hasn't climbed yet! Each year it 'shrubs' itself at the base of the post, producing the most beautiful clusters of deep pink flowers. The petals are tightly wedged together (over one hundred overlapping petals in a single flower, according to my big rose book) - photographs with the camera's close-up button are very rewarding.
The Climbing Rose Uetersen
A Reluctant Climber
So all this lovely rose has to do now is to produce the right sort of canes, and actually climb! I don't think it's simply a case of incorrect pruning - I didn't prune Uetersen at all for the first three years, having read that climbing roses liked this type of neglect. And, after all, it was purchased in the bare root rose sale of the century. Perhaps the wrong canes were used to build it in the first place!
Pink Uetersen Roses
My big Botanica's Roses book agrees with me that this rose should climb, and uses the name Rosarium Uetersen - so I eventually found it under R. Hopefully being included in my climbing roses section will give it confidence next spring.
Update - Summer 2010
What is it with the Uetersens sold in New Zealand nurseries as climbers? I now have two more on an archway which are refusing to climb, and they came from a proper rose nursery. They reach about as far as my waist, are gorgeously, brightly pink, with clusters and clusters of flowers. But they are not climbers, and their labels say they are. Blast!