Have you considered "Pleasant Hill Cemetary" from Vintage Gardens? It's Gregg Lowery's most highly recommended climbing rose and I think it would be fine in your climate and soil, but you might want to contact them to ask. Other great climbers: 'Reve d'Or', 'Madame Alfred Carriere,' 'Lamarque,' 'Cl. Devoniensis.'

Most of the English roses are shrubs and not climbers, though a few will get large enough to climb. There is a yellow climbing English rose Malvern Hills but I don't grow it to recommend. The Noisettes that lbuzzel mentions are not hardy in zone 6 here, so would probably be marginal where you livea and suffer a lot of winter damage.

Good healthy, hardy repeating climbers here are Aloha (peachy pink), Rhonda (pink), Ilse Krohn Superior (white), and Rhode Island Red (red:).

Hi: I mostly lurk here rather than post, but, I have a climbing rose "compassion" that is just great. It's an agreeable pinky yellow, reblooms well and is healthy as can be.

Compassion is a great, healthy and deliciously fragrant rose, but not tall enough and quite stiff. Could be used, however, on one corner.
Lori's idea about Ilse Krohn Superior is a winner - that is a large, fragrant rose and you can train it, espalier it on the house. It would look great against the brick background. Get it from Pickering nurseries (Canada). They also have Compassion.

Like most said, most Austins are not large climbers, although from what I have seen(not grown), Malvern Hills becomes a large climber(20ft range). Malvern Hills doesn't have the typical English Rose bloom though. It opens similarly, but I believe it has noisette heritage and it opens to small blooms. I believe Austin's Snow Goose is similar, but I'm not sure if it's from noisette heritage...might be another OGR rose heritage...either way, the blooms are pom pomish on Snow Goose. Another Austin climber is The Generous Gardener which appears to be relatively large, however I've seen little feedback for it because DAR misgrafted thousands of them and people were sent the wrong rose, so I really haven't seen too many owners of it.

While most of the Austins are not REAL vigorous large climbers, I think your house appears low enough that you could make it work in my opinion depending on what kind of arrangement you want and/or how many climbing roses are you planting. I grow Graham Thomas and it's only in it's 2nd year and 7+ ft tall...almost the same as New Dawn. I'm not even training it like a climber either. I'm sure Graham Thomas could reach 10-12 ft with relative ease if trained as a climber. I've seen The Generous Gardener reported at 10'+, but as I said earlier the reports have been kind of hit or miss with the grafting issues at DAR.

Crown Princess Margareta is a climber, although I've only seen it on small arbors and trellis's so I'm unsure of what kinds of heights it can achieve. Masha grows CPM, so maybe she could predict what kind of height it could obtain better.

I've seen James Galway and Scepter D'Isle crack the 10' mark from my estimation, but once again that was on structures and not the side of a house, so it's hard to guage "how much more" they could grow after that. I remember seeing a Tess of the d'Ubervilles crack 10', but if my memory serves right, it was in a warm sunny location(AKA Texas/California)

The Pilgrim is SUPPOSED to be a pretty tall climber, however I don't believe I've ever seen somebody growing a mature one as a climber, so I'm not at liberty to say there.

Here is a link that might be useful: Austin climbers

I agree;
you need a monster climber to soften the mass of that red brick!

In your shoes, I'd go with a white rose (though I don't know which one-somebody here will know what to use);
white will show up & complement the color of the house.

How about the old standby New Dawn? It probably won't bloom all summer but it is almost bullet proof.

Wow! Thanks everyone for the great input! I will check into these lovely rose ideas. Also I have another question to add:

How many rose (own stems most likely) will I need of the same kind to accomplish climbing at least half of the back of the house?

Newbie rose gardener- Em

Hi Sparrow, I live in a different zone and the challenges
of climbing roses here are different from yours. But You should go to RogueValleyRoses.com and click on their Climbers category and that will give you some really nice pictures and short descriptions of the roses. Watch mainly for disease resistant and shade tolerant for your situation. Hope that helps. By the way I saw a pink Bourbon called Blairii No.2 that is full and double like an Austin gets 9-15 ft tall that you might like, but someone from your area would have to tell you how it would grow there.
roseberri

It also depends if you want a rebloomer or once blooming is ok too.

The other possibilities are John Cabot, Laguna, Himmelsauge or even Baltimore Belle, since it can get rather high. Also, alba rose bushes can get very high, so on the side near ground floor only you may not even need a climber, any shrub that grows up to 5-8 ft can do a trick.

Phyllis Bide will do nicely. Has all of the colors you mentioned in pastels and has the great attribute of doing well in North and West exposure. Will bloom in considerable shade. Nice fragrance too.

I am having very good luck with Crepuscule, an apricot Hybrid Musk, on a NW exposure.

New Dawn is too thorny (you have too many windows you will need to access) and Ghislaine doesn't climb well.

You might look at the old Ramblers for the back, which are spring-only bloomers but will give you that look of castles covered in roses. Then plant shorter roses in front of them for all-season interest, either smaller shrubs, or set a little farther out, a couple of the really large noisettes. If you do ramblers against the back, you would only need two, one on either side.

Go visit Roses Unlimited in SC. They have a good selection and will know what works in your region.

I couldn't see where anyone else commented that you will need a structure of some sort for rose support.

Roses don't climb up brick walls by themselves. Most trellis that you can buy at big box stores or on line are too flimsy and small for a real climber.

Nice house! Enjoy!

>Ghislaine doesn't climb well.

Hi Catsrose,

What problems did you have in getting it to climb?

I've read a recommendation for using it that way in Barbara Wilde's rose book, but haven't tried it yet. Ours is only about a month old and hasn't been planted yet, but I was figuring on letting it climb on a nearby railing, once it got large enough to get there. So you are saying that won't work? Have those who succeed in training Ghislaine De Feligonde done something unusual to make theirs work?

I haven't planted her yet, so I could still change her position. Thanks for any details!

Best wishes,
Mary

Here is a link that might be useful: Ghislaine de F igonde at Help Me Find

Mary, There have been a couple of post re:G and the consensus, including my experience, is that she prefers to be large shrub. You could get her onto a small arbor or around a pillar, but she doesn't get the long climbing canes. She might work on a railing. Mine is five years old and is still a mound, not a reach.

>she doesn't get the long climbing canes

Oh, that makes a difference for the plans here then, catsrose. Thanks so much!

Best wishes,
Mary

Catsrose, I keep thinking about this, and wondering how a rose that doesn't naturally put out long canes can get such good distance for some people. (Several at HelpMeFind.com show good climbing, and also in the book "Growing Beautiful Roses" by Barbara Wilde, she says the rose is shade tolerant, and also that it makes a beautiful sight climbing up an old apple tree, where presumably the sunlight conditions would be for a fair amount of shade at the lower levels of the tree.)

So here's a guess about the difference: that those who succeed with using this rose as a climber are planting the rose in less than reasonably good sunny conditions that most roses want, and of course they can do that because it's a shade tolerant rose. But roses growing in less than ideal sun do tend to become more leggy than they otherwise might, and in almost all circumstances growing upward helps the rose to reach more light. This rose is supposed to have pretty good shade tolerance, but naturally would prefer more sunlight, and apparently does have the strength to get a reasonably good distance in the direction of finding more light.

Did you and others with problems getting long canes out of Ghislaine De Féligonde try growing yours in pretty good sun conditions, or in some noticeable amount of partial shade? (If it was fairly shady, then my guess is all washed up.) Anyway, according to my theory, someone planning on letting Ghislaine De Féligonde climb very far up a south-facing wall will have less luck than someone planning on having her climb on a north-facing wall. And the same idea would hold for letting her climb on an arbor somewhere, with the key question for climbing success: What are its sunlight conditions?

Best wishes,
Mary

Well regarding Ghislaine, I also think it is a very high shrub rather than a climber - at least all that I have seen in person looked like it. It may work under an apple tree as it can spread to the sides, but keep in mind that apple tree branches usually are very low and generally apple tree usually is about 20 feet high. So if Ghislaine gets to lets say 8 feet, technically it "climbs apple tree", but it is not a real rambler which would consume the whole tree. In HMF there is a pic of it without leaves, it gives a good idea of its habit imho.

Hi Elemire,

Thanks for your feedback! What were the sun conditions where you were growing Ghislaine? (Still working on my theory...)

Unless multiple pictures were mixed up with some other rose at HelpMeFind--that does happen sometimes--I'm certain that on multiple occasions Ghislaine has sent out canes longer than 8 feet. Also judging from its pictures, it appears that wherever the rose is located, it's going to be very bushy and full to whatever height it does attain. (I think this is quite an attractive feature!)

Peter Beales in "Classic Roses" mentions a size for Ghislaine of 8' x 8' but he also calls it a short climber suitable for a northern exposure (like a north wall). And for growing roses here in North Carolina, 8' x 8' is likely a noticeable underestimate, as roses generally don't grow as large much farther to the north in Britain as they do here.

Best wishes,
Mary