I planted my Heritage this past spring, and have been using garden stakes to prop it up.

I think when it matures it will not need staking, but it might still have a somewhat spreading habit.

I wouldn't prune it hard now... in spring a light pruning.

The Mills Rose Garden in Syracuse grows it, and as I recall it's a freestanding shrub there.

My heritage is about 2 years old and own root and has grown to about 5 feet tall and 3 feet wide. The canes seem to be strong and supports itself pretty well. I am very impressed with this rose, it blooms a lot, grows fast and really stands out.

It has an excellent freestanding, somewhat arching, shrub habit. Like most shrubs, it needs to gain strength for a couple of years. You can prop up the weak shoots if you want. In spring I cut arching canes back to the top of the arch. Cut to an upward-facing bud. Occasionally it throws a stout, overlong (7') basal shoot. I cut these back to about 3' after blooming. Generally Heritage is well behaved and easy to prune up.

Yup.

I prune mine in winter or early spring. It takes a few years to get going but now it has strong, self-supporting canes that grow about 6'-7' tall and 4'- 5' wide. It is almost always in bloom too!

For a young plant like yours, I'd prop it up for now and then prune it after it goes dormant to get it self-supporing. In a couple years the canes will be stronger and won't need support.

The young ones are floppy. There was a large one at Fullerton Arboretum, CA trained into a white picket fence. The canes got more robust every year because they never got cut as they became part of the fence. Eventually it got so big that it stuck into the walk too ,much and the new director had it removed.

The prettiest one I ever saw was at least 8 feet wide and 4 feet tall in morning sun and dappled afternoon shade from trees to the west. It lived a pampered life on the edge of a perfect lawn where no doubt it ate the best lawn food available and a big drink of water every morning. ( this was a perfect bluegrass lawn in so. CA - a rare thing indeed )

LA Arboretum's Heritage was kept to a compact 3 1/2-4 foot height last I checked on it. It always seemed to have upright self supporting canes. I think this was helped by being on Dr. Huey roots.

Mine's on it's own roots and still a bit floppy but I want to let it get big like the one that grew in the "magazine photo" yard. I agree with Kim that this rose needs water more than some others to look good.

Mine did the octopus canes in year 3 a few years ago. I cut it back hard, and thought I tamed it. This year, same thing. I had canes flopping all over the place.

Whatever you do, don't let it convince you that it doesn't need hard pruning. It does. It would probably do best as a short climber in my zone.