'Clair Matin' is an outstanding rose: beautiful, disease resistant and reliably remontant. For me, south of Boston, it makes a large stiff caned shrub about 5' tall and 5' wide. Your once bloomer sounds exactly like 'City of York' which can get huge. I can't think of another rose with the same description. 'Albertine' is another outstanding rose that meets your requirements very well and is hardy, reliable and beautiful. I see that you are looking for a rose to grow 12' - 15' along the fence (my 'May Queen' has canes only about 6' long, but the one at Elizabeth Park is grown as a climber, as I recall). My 'Albertine' grows on a split rail fence about 4' high and does extend at least 10'. The canes are very flexible and easy to train. Now that I think some more about it, this rose really does meet your requirements very well. Mine does not lose foliage and is reliably hardy on Cape Cod.

Kristimama - I use Black Magic potting soil. It seems to be widely available, and it was highly recommended by a very knowledgeable person on this forum. It's a tad expensive, but since my roses have so much to contend with already, I felt they deserved it. I should have mentioned that I have only had roses for about 4 years, so I'm far from expert. I've learned a lot, however, due to volunteering once a week at the Sacramento Historic Rose Garden in the old city cemetery (a wonderful place to spend a few hours, working or not!). I also should have mentioned that my roses are about to face an even more challenging environment: After yellowjackets came every summer that we've been here (4 years), last summer they built a nest in the rolled-up "privacy screens" on the balcony, directly above my roses. The exterminator said that they would be bound to come back, as they find those rolled-up screens to be a perfect nesting site (it keeps them warm, etc.), and that it would be best to keep the screens rolled down. They're part of the balcony (i.e., the property of the apartment complex), so I can't get rid of them. They are down now, as I am allergic to bees and wasps. SO... the roses (and my other plants, succulents) will get even less sun than before. This coming summer is an experiment - I'm hoping that the screens being down will produce a dappled shade effect, thus shielding things from frying, while still letting in enough sunlight to keep everything more or less happy. We shall see. As Amelia Peabody would say, "Another challenge! I'm up to it!" -- at least, I hope so. Laura

Some examples: On Nov 12, 2007, Kell from Northern California, CA (Zone 9b) wrote: I am not too happy with this climber. I have 2 of them. The one in the front yard I grow as a fountain rose, pruning it every winter to a few feet. It has many canes now and puts on a grand spring show. The blooms are long lasting and it takes a long time for all the roses in the cluster opens. However the repeat bloom is poor. In the back yard, I have this growing on an arbor but not for much longer. Again the blooms are sparse but here even in the spring. The plant has had powdery mildew and just looks unhappy. On Jul 8, 2010, levon1972 from Rio Rancho, NM wrote: Initially, was very happy with this rosa social climber "Jacweave". Planted on two trellises, each plant produced small, lovely, pink roses in its 1st season, then in 2nd season did the same but must say blooms did not last long from April. Now in our 3rd season we had in April a mass of new buds everywhere at first, but we pruned them after blooming and then"" Nada,Zip, Nothing" since then. On Mar 7, 2011, monniemon from Lansdale, PA wrote: Social climber is in her 3rd season, she had taken our zone 6 winters well. This rose is a very fast grower, gives beautiful blooms but did not rebloom for me at all last year. So i have decided to shovel her and to put Aloha Climber in her place. Jackson & Perkins has Social Climber listed as a repeat bloomer, they really need to change that to (occasional/once blooming)!. Iam sure that others purchased this rose and wasted 3 seasons on it to see it grow and then was very disappointed that it has no reblooming cycle. Social climber had one great show in the end of april and has had no other blooms since, not even a bud. The rose only blooms once. I have had social climber for four seasons now and have given it every opportunity to produce the 35plus petals that Jackson Perkins says it has and to rebloom as stated in the JP descripiton of this rose. I find it all to be misleading, first of all, i have seen no more that 16-20 petals on this rose, secondly, it does NOT REPEAT!!! For this reason, i will shovel and replace this rose next growing season with Aloha Climber. And there are good reviews too: Just thought I'd add my 2 cents in here. I've now had this climber for 6 years - nearly shoveled it years 2-3 as it grew, but only had a single mediocre flush in the spring, and nothing more. HOWEVER, the last 3 years, it just gets better and better. HUGE spring/early summer flush, several smaller ones during the hottest part of summer, and then a nice finale in the late summer early fall. Not much scent to mine, but it sure is pretty. On May 3, 2009, patricia4 from Beaumont, CA wrote: Absolutely love this rose! I have two climbing on the block wall fence here in Beaumont, CA where temperatures reach over a 100 degrees every summer and it sometimes snows in March. Plus we get a great deal of wind. In April and May the roses put on a magnificient show. The flowers seem to glow in the sun. Even though the repeat bloom is not as showy as in April, the roses still put on a fine show. Social Climber has been trouble free. My husband and I love to sit out in our yard and look at these beautiful roses. I am moving to Tennessee and hope to be able to grow them there. From others' comments, I'm wondering if this is a rose that really needs to be fanned strongly. If a rose blooms less as it gets older, but still very young, maybe it's growing too upright? I'm going to go on and put mine where she can be trained more horizontally than I'd planned. It could possibly be that she's a heavy feeder? Maybe she blooms less later because she needs a bunch of goodies each year. Hollie

Fred, The theory is based on Daily Light Integral - the total amount of light that a plant gets in a day. Sort of like using a rain gauge to determine not how hard it is raining but how rain we get from a shower. But in this case, it is the amount of PAR light, light in the 400-700 nm range. This link provides the amount of light needed for various greenhouse plants. This is to grow to maturity, not seedlings. On Page 4 of this page the formula for calculating moles (or mols) per day is provided. I've measured bright sunlight in summer with my meter and I get about 110,000 - 120,000 lux. Going with 100,000 lux, that's about 9300 foot candles. Multiply that by .000718 gives you 6.67 mols per hour. This is the scientific aspect but the anecdotal part is that I had tomato plants growing in my GH this winter that did nothing except get very leggy until I started getting about five hours of direct light a day. Even then, it was filtered a bit by plastic. But I had hundreds of blooms and now have bunches and bunches of toms. Eaten some, some are almost ready to eat and others will not be ripe for a month or more! Mike