Climbing rose bare bottom half

allymountain13

Since I moved in 3 yrs ago, the climbing rose only has leaves and flowers on the top half of the plant so I'm gazing at a bare fence topped by beautiful white roses. Any ideas?

Liriodendron

Are any of the stems bendy enough to train sideways?  Horizontal stems will produce more flowers, hopefully lower down too.

Next winter you could give it a radical prune, and make the plant produce new stems from lower down.  You could then train these whichever way you wanted.  

allymountain13

Unfortunately not. There are 5 stems. Only 3 have shoots right on the ends. I think you're right. Next March I'll cut them all down to about 0.6m and see what happens.

hogweed

I think it is not too late to do that now. I would cut the 3 lanky ones down to about 2-3 feet. 

Liriodendron

Good plan, Hogweed.  

Lizzie27

Climbing roses are well known for that problem. If the pruning doesn't work, then plant something at the foot or side of the rose (nepeta or lavender maybe) to hide the bare stems.