kirts, I have a lady banks yellow growing in a pot. Took cuttings last year, so this is well rooted. Can you send pictures of iris you have ? Please send email directly from my member page. Looking forward to hearing from you. patty

Hi, I tried to post this yesterday, but for some reason my server went out of commission. So, am posting yesterday's message now. :) ----------------- I just came on to see how my Carolina friends are fairing after Ernesto's rain on top of last week's rainfall, and saw this post about propagating Lady Bank's Roses. Hope all is well. For those of you who are fairly new to the forum and don't know me, I live in Oklahoma, but my daughter lives in Columbia, SC, and some cousins live in Maggie Valley, NC. I love the Carolinas and hope to move there someday. Part of my ancestral roots are in North Carolina and West Virginia. I grow Lady Bank's Roses. I have the soft yellow variety. I hope to get the pink one too. It covers the south & west end of my front porch, and blooms in April-May. I just love it! Yes, you can easily take cuttings and root them. I cut 3 ft. long canes, remove the leaves except on the tip (I leave two or three leaves), and plant the entire length in the ground in a shady, sheltered spot. I leave the growing tip end sticking out of the ground. It roots all along the stem where the leaves were and I end up with a nice mass of roots. If I root them in a container, I set the pot in the shade, too, out of the wind until they have a good root system going. Keep moist, but make sure they are well-drained. You should probably pot them into a gallon-sized plastic containers in about 4-6 weeks. Bury the pots in the soil up to the top of the rim, in a winter-sheltered spot - mulch. In the fall, pile more mulch up around the plant to protect the tender stem and root system. Allow them to grow until next Spring or early summer. Then, plant them out into the garden. Can also be grown in a greenhouse all winter, then hardened off and planted out. I have even just set the containers on top of the ground and piled pine bark mulch up around them and they wintered over just fine, their roots growing down into the soil by spring. I've grown them with and without using rooting hormone. What color(s) do you have? ~ SweetAnnie4u

I haven't seen it successfully kept any smaller, AND have any quantity of bloom, than at least seven feet in all directions. The major "pruning" is done after it flowers, not before, or you cut off the majority of the flowering wood before it flowers. Once it begins pushing new growth all over the plant, you only remove the really long, climbing shoots so it's kept about the size it is. The more you remove, the less color you'll have on it next year. It CAN be done, but it is labor intensive and it requires a lot of room for such a large plant mass. Perhaps growing it up and over the chicken coop might be possible? But, get ready for insect and rodent invasion... You might benefit from growing Purezza instead. It is a hybrid Banksiae and it can flower repeatedly once it's established and the spot is warm enough.

I'm not sure exactly how big it is because it's growing out through a gigantic hydrangea on a very steep slope covered in fallen trees and branches. But it has long flexible canes. I wouldn't be surprised if they were 12' or more - I haven't been able to see where they go into the ground. The hydrangea is acting like a support for it. Some branches are completely horizontal. I found a few volunteer baby roses downslope from it yesterday and eventually realized that a pair of them were growing up out of a long cane that had been flattened by a falling tree and may reach back to the mother plant. It has started rooting along its length into the ground. I didn't know you could layer roses. I foresee I'm going to learn a lot about roses this summer. :)