It can take climbers a few years to really start putting out large climbing canes - before that they put out much smaller canes. What I would do with a new one is let it alone for at least 2-3 years, until it suddenly puts out a fat big cane that shoots out 8-10 feet or more. THAT is the cane I would then (after letting it grow to its full length) train the way you have read about "how to train climbers". The smaller canes these roses put out in the beginning should be left alone, so that the rose can eventually get up the energy to send out its mature climbing canes. You will know the difference - the real climbing canes are startlingly different than what the bush does at the beginning. Jackie Jackie

ditas - leslie's advice above is good re spring pruning. I think of the shape and height I want the Rose of Sharon to be and then remove the excess, allowing for the fact that it puts on a substantial amount of new growth. I usually prune it it early-mid May but will snip off any bits at any time that encroach on space I don't want it to spread into. Because I need mine kept to a confined space, it is pretty easy to see what needs doing. In a more open area I think you'd have to be careful to resist the urge to just shear it into a uniform shape - remove individual main stems, varying the height of the cuts to keep the overall shape natural-looking while still keeping it to a small size. Here is what mine looked like last summer at the end of August: The white chains are a swag along the side of the house. New Dawn roses are swagged on the chains in that picture. We removed the roses this spring, replacing them with clematis (no thorns!) so it'll be a couple of years before the swag chains are covered with greenery again. There is a path that runs along the swag and there is only 2' between the path and the house wall, so the Rose of Sharon has to stay very narrow. Interestingly, this summer with the swag chains empty, the Rose of Sharon seemed to want to fill in for the roses... I think I'm going to try to deliberately foster that next year when I prune in the spring!

Because you live in a nice, warm climate, roses tend to make growth at the expense of making flowers. New growth is easy to make, flowers are harder. I would stop being kind to the rose and not offer any more food this year, that is if you have. Pull the main canes, the ones that are coming from the base, along the fence and tie them in. Not tight, let them sit a few feet above the fence to look graceful and natural. Then shorten these if you run out of fence space. Then you will see much easier where the laterals are coming from. Cut the laterals back to about 12 inches. Don't be too concerned about cutting to the outside bud wisdom, just make sure you cut it about half an inch above a budeye where the leaves are coming from. Next year shorten the main canes if needed to keep them in their allotted space, and try to cut back the laterals again. Just a little food, something which is low in nitrogen. If your soil is good, then don't be too generous with this climber as it has proven to be a foodie and makes a lot of growth.

Hi Hollie I noticed you didn't get much response yet from your zone (I think you're in a warm climate like California) but I'll give you a seat-of-the-pants response. If the rose really wants to be 5-7' tall in your zone, you might be sacrificing bloom to try to get it to stay shorter. For instance, my Poseidon really doesn't want to bloom until it gets about 5' of growth on it, and trying to prune it shorter would make it bush out and put all of its work into regrowing those canes rather than blooming. Sometimes roses (like Austins in my zone) will bloom at shorter heights if you prune them back faithfully every few weeks but again if you prune down all the canes at once, you should expect about 6 weeks of down time before it starts blooming again. Here are a couple of options to consider if you really want these roses and want to try to keep them around 4.5'. First of all, don't just prune off the tops of the roses at 4.5' or they'll start branching out from wherever you cut them and make even more canes that are too tall. When you prune some of the canes, prune them way lower than you want them to end up (say 2') and let them bush out from that point toward the height you want to cap them at. I also wouldn't prune all the canes at once to this height, but instead do no more than a third of the rose at any given time so that you leave some canes to bloom, some to regrow cane, and some that you just recently cut. Instead of pruning canes that are too long, another option is to peg or stretch horizontally the canes that are getting too big. In my front yard, my husband wants me to keep the roses "neat" and no taller than our windows and yew hedges (maybe 3.5'). I'm fortunate enough in that bed to have several roses that really want to be bigger than this, so my go-to solution is to bend down any canes that stretch up beyond the height of the yews and hook that cane under handy canes of the rose next to it. That way the cane is still 5' long but it's only 3.5' tall because most of the height is stretching sideways. Eventually that sideways cane will put out more laterals toward its preferred height of 5', which I will then bend sideways and that lateral will put out more laterals, and the whole cycle starts again. This only works if you have some sideways room to work, and you're willing to put in some monitoring and maintenance of the canes as they grow. Another option would be to ask if there are roses in the color range you want that stay shorter naturally in your zone, and that's by far the easier route. Not all roses get massively huge, even in California, so it might be worth asking around. I'm no help here in zone 5 since it's a rare non-climbing rose that beyond 4.5' in my zone, particularly floribundas. In general floribundas are supposed to stay more compact than HTs but in California that's like comparing elephants to giraffes. Cynthia