There's a few things that I've learned a little differently than what the article/book is stating...

Miniatures: the term "miniature" is based more on bloom size than height. A miniature rose can be well over 1 foot tall, and still be classed as a miniature (and Climbing Mini for example).

Ramblers are generally once blooming (although some do repeat based on their breeding, such as Perennial Blue or Rural England) and have thinner canes (like Jackie said). The ones most people think of as "house eaters" are usually ramblers.

Climbers: Almost always repeat, but of course there are exceptions to this as well (The Alchymist is classified as both a rambler and large flowered climber on HMF). Generally they are shorter and have thicker canes.

Anyone, please correct me if I am wrong :)

Tammy

This post was edited by TNY78 on Sat, Jan 26, 13 at 12:14

If we could see a picture of your pink rose, we might be able to ID it for you.

One of the most popular climbing roses in the United States -- at least, in places not too cold for it, is the climbing version of the pink Polyantha, 'Mlle. Cecile Brunner.'

This is the rose your grandma always called "Cecil Brooner." Most plants of 'Cl. Cecile Brunner' do not repeat bloom, and it can be a halacious big plant, where it is happy.

Cecile Brunner has often been called "The Sweetheart Rose," because the blooms are quite small and dainty. Take a look, via the link below, and see if that is not your climbing rose.

Jeri

Here is a link that might be useful: Cl. Cecile Brunner, at HelpMeFind

Much more likely to be Dorothy Perkins.

Ramblers or climber? I look at it as any rambler I can lash to a structure is a climber. I have even anchored some large ht's to trellises for the affect of a climber. Roses do not climb. They are held upright to give the impression . Long flexible canes and a narrow growth habit help.. I want to live in the little cottage you posted!

OK, not technical because I tend to take little notice whether a rose is a climber or a rambler (I am not much bothered by classes anyway). I must admit to a fair bit of confusion myself, since the differences do not seem due to remontancy (there are repeat ramblers) not on bloom size, nor even on differences in flowering wood (flowers on new growth or second year growth)since I have plants which all seem to buck the prevailing definitions. Still, for pruning, if nothing else,I generally look to see where the new growth is coming from. Climbers, whether large or small flowered will throw many laterals with as much vigour and heft as existing basal canes (new basals can be really stingy in climbers) Indeed, I depend on these laterals for renewal, often adopting a newish lateral to replace an older structural cane. Ramblers, at least here in the UK, tend to be much more generous with basal growth - when pruning, these older basals are the ones I will remove practically to the crown,(doing nothing to laterals or various twiglets, unless they are on the entire removed basal cane) in the certain knowledge that a whole load of new ones will be along soon. I also prune (the ones I imagine might be ramblers) during the summer as the months from July - September is when they have many new basal growths which will flower the following summer.
This is not a definition as such, just what I do and must be taken with a pinch of salt.....and of course, I wonder what comes first - is my pruning regime causing the resulting growth habits, or am I responding to something innate in the rose. Who knows? The older I get, the more I garden, the less I know. (I think I 'peaked' after about 8 years).

Roses are so interbred and various that they do not lend themselves to orderly classification based either on heredity or on visible characteristics.

The American Rose Society classes some long-caned roses as ramblers, others as large-flowered climbers, species hybrids, bourbons, etc. So part of the answer to your question is simply "the ARS puts roses in somewhat arbitrary classes." The designation "rambler" was commonly applied to varieties bred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Those roses were usually hybrids of the species R. wichurana or R. multiflora. Roses classed as large-flowered climbers are usually either sports (mutations) of extant varieties or hybrids of more complex parentage than the ramblers. As people have said above, LCl roses tend to be stiffer and less rampant, have larger flowers, and be repeat bloomers, but there is overlap in all these qualities.

SusanBachman, thanks for your picture

The spectrum of roses is more fluid and blurry than the official classes would probably have you believe. As others have already said, there are roses that exhibit characteristics of more than one distinct classification, and of course environment is a huge factor in whether or not some of these characteristics will manifest themselves (color, height, and cane thickness are some examples of highly variable traits depending on, say, whether the rose is growing in Kansas vs Florida). Austin sells several roses as both shrubs and climbers, the climbers generally taken and propagated from sports of the shrubs (a 'sport' is basically a cutting from a rose that somehow spontaneously behaved differently from the rest of the plant. It isn't a whole new rose because it didn't come into being from two individual parent roses). Also, many roses on the market today have been introduced within the last 20 years which means they are still too young yet for us to really have a complete knowledge of how they truly behave under ideal conditions.

Edit: Oh, hey, just realized this post is from 2013.