What a neat experience! I wish I had been there. One of my goals is to retire young enough to go on a road trip and visit all of the presidential libraries.

I am surprised about the Madame Alfreds growing without supports! Can you describe the shape any more? I'd be interested to know what they ended up looking like without something to climb. Every picture I've ever seen of that rose has a trellis or arbor or fence in it!

Did it look like the older canes were woven to specifically give the rest of the plant structure? I'm trying to imagine how that would work!

They looked like big woody canes meandering in no particular design although a planned meander would have looked neat. Sort of like somebody sat on them and squashed them down so they compressed in a semi tangle like how wire would squish down and stay that way. Maybe the first canes could be trained in a spiral around a wooden pyramid or pillar while the plant was young and then later, the wooden support could be removed. I think I recall that although long, Madame Alfred C's canes are pretty flexible when very young.

Mine ended up tree-like. One of my 'Laguna's is doing the same thing. I think it can be done, though I would not spiral the canes, just get several to go straight up to a certain point.

Several canes going up like a multi trunked tree would be pretty. I was thinking you would need to start out semi horizontal to get the growth bushy along the first canes but maybe you wouldn't need to do that.

I'd think training the strongest canes vertically until they are about the height you desire, then whacking them off, letting them branch out all over would give you pretty much what you've describing. It would be like training a climber into a standard, except you would let every side bud grow instead of only at the top where you would pinch them back continually to create a 'head'.

That's pretty much what's done with Banksiae here to create hillside "bushes". They're continually slashed with machetes to keep them trimmed. They flower all over their surfaces now and look like mounds of white and yellow snow. Kim

Wow - turning MAC into a bush is an intriguing idea. We have three. The tallest leaped over our back fence, and is now growing up our neighbor's pine tree. Yesterday we looked at it - it has started blooming - and my DH (who is a contractor and thus better able than I to estimate height) said that the highest up blossom he could see was at least 30 feet up - that is some tall rose when left to its own devices.

Jackie

Jackie, do you have pictures of your MAC? They must be stunning!

Luanne who used to post on this forum regularly grows here MAC as a large shrub. It is quite lovely.

Rosefolly

zjw727 - here is a picture of a different MAC also growing in our garden - all of the little white rose in the background are from one bush of MAC.

Jackie

Its beautiful! Do you ever prune it? I want to plat MAC here, to cover up an ugly cedar tree, which I HATE...but if I took it out the enormous gap would leave my entire garden visible to the street. So, I might as well cover up something ugly with something beautiful! Is that English Laurel to the left?

Zachary

Thanks, Zachary. HMF says it grows in zones 7-10, so it should be OK there. It loves partial shade here. We never prune any of the three we have, unless long canes fall out of the trees and need to be put back - that does not happen except every few years.

It blooms here literally 11 months of the year. No pruning, no spraying. I only throw osmactote on them once a year, and I am not sure they even need that.

I don't know the name of the bush on the left, but I do not think it is English laurel. It was here when we moved in 25 years ago (only about 25% of it is in the pic). It grows everywhere here, sometimes as huge trees, sometimes as hedges - it is blooming right now - very large bunches of tiny flowers that look like cauliflour.

Jackie