the slack lines indicate it is doing nothing ... it was a large transplant.. and it was done to insure it remained upright ... and after 2 years.. it should be all set ... the wounds at your pix are healing.. i would ignore them ... though i wight flake off some of the bark toward the interior of the wound.. to insure there are not bugs in there ... do NOT further injure the callousing .... if that is the right term ... its getting near time.. to raise that canopy a bit ... so peeps on the sidewalk can walk by w/o injury ... i dont know about the timing of such for your oak.. in your area ... ken

Agree this won't work - rather a glorified peony ring, the sort you put up when the stems of a perennial are still short so they can grow through the grid. You can find a large diameter ring without the grid for about $5 at Walmart & other box store garden centers. Look for the kind that has a hook at each end of the ring itself, so the circle can be opened to place around the plant without trying to thread branches through a solid ring. The legs just hang from the ring, so you fit the ring higher than needed, slide the legs to position (splayed works well), push in & then close the hooks to complete the ring. These come with various circumference & leg lengths & perhaps you could use 2 or 3 on Munstead Wood at staggered heights, relieving any pressure from the ring against the canes by giving it supports at several points. Never tried it with roses, but they work fine with tall phlox, monarda, any plant that tends to flop open at the center. May be worth a try, since they're so inexpensive. Have tried the half-round stake-in supports you show from that company & have them in different widths & leg lengths. Find them quick props for whoopsy situations but not great for longer use. Having only 2 legs, they need to be pushed in on angle toward the plant since the branches bow them outwards. More than one becomes necessary & twist-ties to stabilize them relative to each other. Find the rings more useful, though the leg positioning can take some fiddling. Another stake slightly smaller than the legs can be helpful for making the initial soil groove the legs can then be set in firmly. Mark the stake with a piece of masking tape for the depth you want the legs to penetrate the soil so you end up with the support horizontal rather than crazy angles, same as you'd set an obelisk or arbor. Lowes & others also carry leafy or curvy 2-5' double-pronged stakes for $10-15 that might work to support MW's branches. Foldable rabbit-fencing type garden edging with ground spikes & looped tops comes in low & knee-high versions & could be fitted around MW. Have even used croquet wickets in a pinch... I've used tomato cages, often snipping them vertically & stretching them out to form semicircles for support. Usually place them upside down - the legs sticking up & soil staples securing the ring at the bottom - with the now topside legs gathered into a finial like the terracotta balls sold for bamboo cane toppers. If they've been snipped lengthwise to fit around a plant, green zipties hold them together again & are easily cut for removal. (Also fits well in pots & looks classical. Good for vines & topiary frames, too, as well as cones planted like "living wreaths".) For Golden Celebration, you might try a curved trellis such as the one in the link. Even two of these would be no more pricey than the support you've shown, and may actually prove useful. You've got the wall behind GC, so you could support the naturally arching canes with one of these to the front, one at either side, 2 side-by-side to form a semicircle around the front, or placed at the rear with the arms curving toward the rose. I've seen these in person - they're hefty & made well for the price. Considering one myself, imagining sliding seashells or Christmas balls over the arrow points to make them less formal in this country garden, though they are classically traditional as they are. You could also do a modified espalier using the suction-cup anchors sold for vines on the wall with monofilament line, making the support invisible. Dura-Trel makes some good-looking & reasonably priced trellises in gray & mocha as well as white, some broad & tall enough to cover a wall, with a 6-footer running around $50. The wall one can be found for $120 & free ship, and might be used to run up the wall behind your rose & continue past the wall to form a "railing" to that end of your porch. Tall trellises can be hard to find - Plow & Hearth carries a couple metal ones reasonably priced. Many use the livestock panels available at farm supply stores. A length of modular garden fence set in front of the bed might keep GC in bounds for a while. There are so many options out there. Left the GC here to grow unbound the first couple of years while considering how to provide support. Unlike yours, that one's in the center of a wide bed, so in no danger of sprawling to snag passersby. Wound up assembling a copper pipe obelisk 2' square by 9' high around the rose, the kind with ogee curves at the top held by a ball finial. GC's corraled within the structure rather than tied in & arches gracefully along the cross-bars as a tall fountain. Copper obelisks can be pricey to buy, but they're simple to construct with pipe fittings & a pipe cutter with no soldering required. Found mine some years back as a garden store display irresistibly discounted & stored it knocked-down till it, finally, came to mind when pondering how to support Golden Celebration after perusing many possibilities. Seems your GC's in no immediate need, so maybe keep exploring the possibilites... This post was edited by vasue on Mon, May 19, 14 at 12:51

I have to admit that i have been trying to get 2 climbers, blaze improved & white dawn to grow in a location adjacent an arbor where i previously had a perfume breeze climber. i removed the perfume breeze because it never attained the height i wanted relative to the arbor. It was in the location for 3 years. This spring i ammended the soil with lots of compost, manure etc, and yet these 2 roses ( mentioned above) have been sitting there for months now. It’s like they are just in idle. I’m baffled why they won’t break new canes, show any development. Roses nearby are all exhibiting some kind of growth / change post flowering in late May/ June. i have read about this as well, but i suppose without scientific data to completely answer our questions, well I suppose we remain in the dark. Go ahead and make your changes and see what evolves. good luck.

i love my hummingbirds! they are so funny and one is really mean to other birds, not just other hummers. mike calls him "that mean little ba@#$%^". mine love the feeder but they also enjoy a deep azure colored perennial salvia that is planted near the feeder. they don't feed much at my feeder until august. before august, i observe only one regular hummer that feeds exclusively on the salvia. then in august, almost by the calendar, others join him/her and that's when my regular gets real teritorrial. other birds that feed at the feeder all season are orioles and red house finches.