First time planting a 15 gallon rose bush with prickles.

I guess that you have to say that I am a novice when it comes to rose gardening.

I have been working o putting together a White Flower Border. I have a white Lady Banks rose on one side of the arbor, but it only blooms once, though really quite spectacular. I bought it as a one gallon plant. Last year, it didn't even bloom, and hardly grew. This year is different, though It is still quite small, it already has some blooms on it.

So on the other side of the arbor, I planted a climbing ' Iceberg'. I ordered it from my nursery, but I didn't realize that it would be a 15 gallon rose! I will show you the picture of how I did it.

Yes, I wrapped 2 empty mulch sacks around the bush, and then asked my husband to pull. It came right out , but for some reason I was unable toI do it alone. I remember that I save those bags for thorny twigs to put in the trash, as regular trash bags won't be sufficient to protect anyone who handles it. I happen to have some of those bags, so I put them to good use.

Evelyn, did they actually order it for you? And give you such a large rose?

That's fantastic!!!!! What a great nursery. I know it's a bit of a problem to plant but how nice of them to do this for you.

Donna

Donna ~ Yes, they special ordered this for me. I did not specify size, I just asked if they could order one. It is planted. Should I have my husband fix some kind of strong wires for these roses to climb?

These pictures aren't very good, but you get the idea.

I got two Quadra (Explorer climber) a few years ago. They were bareroot from Pickering, and the nice thing about Quadra is that the branches start off extremely flexible and soft as butter. So I could train them sideways easily, which I started doing tin the second year. They were also much smaller plants.

You have a bit of a dilemma in that what one normally does is allow the rose to grow a bit and then start training it sideways. It would have been preferable to train it from a lower level than is available with such a mature specimen. Have a look at the picture below. You want to get it as horizontal as possible, from as low a point as possible, as soon as possible.

This looks really wonky, but the effect you are going for is in the third and fourth pictures. This is two roses, by the way.

Don't use wires whatever you do. They will cut into the stems. I used the thicker tomato tape. You can see it in the pictures. It's flexible, yet strong, and has some "give" to allow the rose to expand a bit without getting cut.

I flinch to tell you this, but I think your rose is too tall to train without being cut back. You do have the alternative of just enjoying it as it is and cut it back next spring so that you can train it. Unless you have stems flexible enough to move them sideways.

If I had anticipated that they would do this, I would have warned you to ask for a smaller one. I suspect that the supplier was happy to offload this huge and beautiful but difficult to train specimen.

Donna

Donna ~ Thank you for your advice. Especially regarding using wire.