That happened to me. While cucurbits are usually bred to have male flowers come out first (I'm assuming this attracts pollinators with the least expenditure of energy), I am told that for large scale farms, where I guess pollinators are used to coming, they are bred the opposite way. That's because they want their fruit fast, and if you have one male flower, you can do the job on many female flowers. So you may have gotten some of that latter variety.

Thanks, Seedmama. That's kind of what I was thinking. I cut down the plants today. I couldn't use full sized ones in this spot, but thanks for the offer. I went out to cut down those plants when the temp finally hit 32 degrees. I ended up spending about an hour and a half, cutting down and yanking the last few annuals, mulching the last 2 small areas with leaves, messing with the compost, collecting the leftover plant stakes, sprinklers, hose nozzles, all the sundries. They're in my garage, after I thaw I'll organize stuff a bit for winter storage. Karen

I've been using a permanent mulch system in my acre market garden for several years and it works great. Talk to professional maintenance gardeners in your area and see if they will bring you their clippings and leaves. This would not be a one-time arrangement--the gardener would bring them on a daily or weekly basis forever. You just keep shoveling them on. Hay, particularly straw, is bad news in a way other than weeds--the carbon/nitrogen ratio is unfavorable and nitrogen will tie up [contrary to previous thought about mulching]. Grass clippings are ideal. The permanent mulch system really works: Just keep shoveling mulch, plant what you like and contribute what you don't like to your permanent mulch system by cutting it out. Happy gardening, Locust . . . John

Per the stated parentage, it is a "Hybrid Sweetbrier", the parentage being "Golden Glow", one of the Brownell Sub Zero Roses, crossed with a hybrid of Eglantine, R. Eglanteria, the Sweetbrier. Species hybrids are generally considered "old garden roses", probably due to rose exhibition/rose show rules. Your chances of wining iron are much greater competing against more "rustic", rangy, older types than something more controlled and refined. Size depends upon climate and resources. At the colder end of its range, it supposedly makes a largish shrub, like many of the Austin roses do. Unleashed in the land of never ending summer, it gets HUGE (and usually won't flower). Much of how a rose is classed will depend upon WHERE you're trying to grow it. Peter Beales wrote of Ballerina, that it was one of their most useful small shrubs. Let it loose in coastal Southern California and I've seen it eat a 20'-plus pine tree in Manhattan Beach. So, what is it? "Hybrid Musk"? Though it obviously has NO "musk" genes in it what so ever. "Shrub"? Where? Britain or British type climates? Not where there is no "winter". There, it is a large, mildewy and black spotted climber. "Hybrid Multiflora"? From what it appears and how it performs, yup. Personally, I would love an 8' "climber". VERY few in these parts ever remain that "small". Climber v. rambler is a bit easier to envision. Both "climb" because they get overly long. "Climbers" tend to be stiffer, more brittle wooded, harder to train without kinking and breaking canes. They often have larger flowers, too, but not always. Think of the type of wood the average Cl HT creates. Try bending that to a trellis and it often kinks and breaks. Have you ever tried training Polka? Imagine trying to force rebar to bend to your will... "Ramblers" generally can even be used for ground cover as they can easily lay pretty flat on the ground before building themselves into large mounds. They generally produce rather flexible wood, unless it is very old, thick and woody. Until it ages, most can even be wrapped back on themselves to "self peg" and created a hoop, tying it back to itself. Something the average climber wouldn't be easy to make do. Most ramblers are going to be hybrids of multiflora, wichurana, soulieana, arvensis while "climbers" are sometimes based upon ramblers, but bred further with other types to create thicker wood, smaller flower clusters and larger flowers. "Climbers" can also arise from other types...Chinas, Teas, other species such as Brunonii, Moschata, etc. Consider Dr. Huey, the "root stock". Huey is a Large Flowered Climber with pretty stiff canes. The seed parent was Ethel, a rambler with flexible canes and smaller flowers in larger clusters. Ethel was a self seedling of the old Dorothy Perkins, one of the most infamous of mildewy ramblers the world has known. Jack Harkness joked that Dorothy Perkins had mildewed her way around the world. This line of ramblers was then crossed with Gruss an Teplitz, a "China, Hybrid China, Hybrid Tea" (all of which COULD be claimed from its breeding) which gave it larger flowers in smaller clusters, and fewer flowers, plus thicker, stiffer canes, removing it from being a "rambler" and into being considered a "Large Flowered Climber". Clear as mud?