Knowing how to care for climbing roses successfully needs a lot of understanding with regard to preparation. They aren't particularly delicate but they do need more attention than normal outdoor roses. They do climb well given the right conditions but they need help.

Unlike grapevines or ivy they do not have the ability to anchor themselves to anything they come into contact with. Therefore you need to provide a sufficient anchor and this anchor has to do 3 separate jobs. Firstly it needs to support the plant fully, making sure that it can withstand any wind conditions you may get as the overall weight of these plants when fully mature can be great. Secondly the anchor needs to be loose enough to allow for easy growth and thirdly the it needs to support your rose about an inch away from the main structure; this will provide good air circulation that in turn helps prevent dampness and possible disease.

Pruning Spring Bloomers:
There are types of climbing rose that bloom only in spring and there is one very important difference between them and the climbers that produce blooms all year round. This difference is that their blooms come from old growth so do not prune them in spring like you would a normal climber, prune instead just after the blooms have died.

Pruning All Year Bloomers:
Once planted, they need to be left alone for two or three years, this will give them time to develop strong, long canes. Still remove any dead parts and any, 'offshoot', canes where you don't want them.

After this initial two to three years you can then select more canes to allow to grow where you want, generally remove new canes that develop at the base of the plant unless you want more main canes.

If you accurately follow this pattern new shoots will develop and these will produce the flowers. During your climbing roses' dormant period, later winter to early spring, cut these shoots back but only by around two to three inches. If one of the main canes becomes old, shabby and isn't willing to produce blooms as well as it has in the past, be brave and remove it. You will be doing the plant a service because this will encourage new canes to sprout from its base that you can then train to replace it.

After this two three year period the blooms will begin to appear in earnest and are well worth your patience.

Watering, nourishment and sun exposure remain the same with climbing roses as normal ones but I have noticed that the climbing roses I have that get more sun, do grow better than others that don't. A great tip is to treat you climber as if it has two sections, the main cane growth and the flowering shoots. This helps a lot in understanding how you train it; consistently choose the strongest and then support these at roughly equal spaces.

The more horizontal you can get them the more blooms they produce. Don't be afraid to cross the canes if you want as you can have great success growing two climbers that will eventually look like they are one plant, crossing the canes helps to, 'melt', the colours together!