Nasturtiums will hang down and dangle; cardinal climbers want to go up, but will hang down if there's nothing to climb. The cardinal climbers will tend to get tangled up and messy looking if hanging down. PV

Re: Bare rooted climbers in pots. Or any other roses for that matter. Yes you can do it, in fact it works well. A decent sized pot so you can get then bud union down close to the soil level (not under it though) and a good potting mix with some added old horse manure and they will thrive. How do I know? Because that is what I did when we were building our house and I was starting to get plants together for our new garden. I bought up as many as I could afford when the shops had their barerooted stock in in winter, all the old favourites and what I call the bread and butter varieties plus a good range of David Austins. During the hottest part of the summer I shifted them so they were shielded from the fiercest part of the afternoon heat, mainly so their new young roots didn't cook and when the weather cooled I shifted them back out into the open. They were fertilised regularly (weekly) with liquid fertiliser, (pots don't have much room for much manure top dressing and I don't trust granular fertilisers and new roses in pots) and because they were all in fairly close proximity kept up a regular spray routine. They flowered well and I pruned them as normal when it was time. Then end result was, when the house was finished and we moved in in the April, as soon as the rains came I had about 120 nice strong bushes to plant out and start to form the frame work for my garden. Types included were H.T's, Floribundas, mini's, D.A.'s, the climber's and rambler's and heritage roses. I can't say that any one type stood out as not doing as well as the rest. Best Wishes, New gardens are a lot of hard work but worth it in the end. Rosalie

absolutely, John Innes is a great base but on its own, it gets a bit claggy and loses structure on its own so if you can find Levington's 'Jack's Magic' or any of the New Horizon composts, or grit or perlite, it will help with aeration and drainage. Up to a quarter of the JI can be replaced with a compost mix (or leafmould) or any of the mineral amendments (clay hydroleca, chick flint, horticultural grit, perlite, vermiculte et al). I would also use a good proportion of garden soil which, as well as equalising (to some extent) the difference between pot and garden soil, it also has the added advantage of being teeming with microlife (unlike bagged mixes which are sterile and inert). If you can scrape some soil from beneath a tree, there will be lots of arbuscular mycchorhizae which attaches to the root system, increasing surface area and uptake efficiency. Finally, I like the organic Osmo slow-release fertilisers (they do a good rose one) which you should find online (not many garden centres stock it). I get mine from Fargro or LBS horticultural supplies. A spring topdressing lasts all season.

I'm not sure what way is the wrong way. You're probably have to make repairs to the ceiling unless you're going to leave those rosettes and bolts sticking out. I have a long flexible drill bit that can go through joists and only needs a hole about every three feet or so big enough to put my hand into. Yeah, I've found low voltage transformers concealed all kinds of places (like above cabinets,etc...). If you have the switch, you can start looking from there (or an electrician can use a line tracer).