Question
I would like to plant grapes and climbing roses next to each other.  I wanted to know if they will compliment each other in regards to nutritional requirement and what fertilizer I should use.  I need to add I will not plant them at my primary residence and I would only the able to attend to them every other week therefore it should the a rather low maintenance type.
Thank you


Answer
Dear Iris-

Please plant the grape vine and roses at least 10 feet apart.  In my experience - the grape vine is a bit more aggressive than the rose - and might smother it.  Grape leaves will twine around the rose canes and the grape leaves will limit the amount of sun that the rose gets - also the grape leaves are very abundant and will limit the amount of air circulation the rose foliage gets and increase the amount of blackspot disease.  I would not use rose fertilizer on the grape vine.  I would use a general purpose or fruit/vegetable fertilizer on the grapevine, and rose fertilizer on the climbing rose.  Or - you could possibly use a general purpose fertilizer on both but you might have slightly less performance on the climbing rose
(vs. using a fertilizer specifically formulated for roses, but it would still work but to a slightly lesser degree).
I don't know what part of the country you are from.  How much rain fall do you get?  If you can only tend to them every other week - I assume you get plenty of rainfall in your area.  Otherwise - it might be a good idea to plant roses that are more drought tolerant - Linda Campbell, Mutabilis, Fortuniana, New Dawn or species roses etc. or pick one-time spring blooming roses - Zephirine Drouhin is a bourbon rose that is very drought tolerant for me.  You can check on the website WWW.Everyrose.Com and do a search for various types of climbers - like one time spring blooming roses that would end up being more drought tolerant (because they mostly need water when they are blooming in the spring and that is usually a time of abundant rainfall).  Old garden roses are usually more lower maintenance (Jaune Despreaz, Buff Beauty, Madame Alfred Carriere, Reve D'Or) but these roses require that you live in a more moderate climate - I don't know what your USDA zone is.  For a cold-hardy climbing rose that usually has pretty good drought tolerance and is low-maintenance - climbing Blaze is a good choice.

Have fun smelling the roses!

Carlene
aka the Flowerlady