Don't know if fence, pillar, or arbor is best--I grow mine wrapped around a pillar. The canes are almost not flexible enough to do this, but I managed anyway (wrap them while they are younger and more flexible). Since it is wrapped, it's hard to say how tall it is, but I would guess 10-12 ft. Eden is somewhat disease-resistant, but does need some spraying from time to time. The spring bloom is fabulous--love, love, love those blooms! Mine have always rebloomed, but some posters have complained that their Edens were very stingy re-bloomers. Certainly, the re-bloom is not as heavy as the first spring bloom. I grow a clematis up it to fill in the empty places later in the summer. I'm under the impression that my Eden likes a bit more water and food than my other climbers do. No scientific data on that--just my impression. I think you will love this climber as long as you don't expect the spring abundant flowering to last all summer. Kate

Hi Mila Welcome to the fun of rose gardening and we all understand, since we're in LOOOOVVVE with roses too. One way to keep the love going both directions is to pick roses that will easily love you back. I would question the rating of Dortmund as zone 4, since it died like a dog in my zone 5 Nebraska winters, and Kate reports that hers just barely squeaked by in zone 6. I'd guess it's more like a zone 6 rose at best, and it wouldn't be the easiest rose to grow as a climber in zone 5. The most important thing about climbers isn't just getting them to survive the winters at their roots, but to have surviving cane to climb and bloom from. That means choosing roses that are hardy at least a zone colder than yours (as you were trying to do with Dortmund as it was reported to you). Otherwise, you're likely to end up with a "climber" that's no more than knee- to waist-high, with skimpy blooms on the ends because it doesn't have enough strength regrowing from the ground each spring to put out the laterals that are the good blooming canes. Doing this means you don't have to mess with any winter protection at all, which is not only a heck of a lot less work and more fun, it makes for nicer blooming roses (because they're already hardy and healthy in your zone) and it makes your neighbors happy. My husband has requested that I keep the front yard "neat", but he's fine with several hundred roses with bare canes, since the trees are bare anyway and no one expects leaves. The untidiness came from my old winter protection methods with bags of leaves chopped all over the front rose beds (now I have a low fence and just dump leaves around the edges of the beds a bit). All of the winter tip methods and other ways of winter protecting roses are likely to be unsightly, and might not even work for a climber that's not suited to your zone. I do absolutely nothing for any of my 30 or so climbers, and most of the time they're the only roses in the spring that have live cane left on them. So, if Dortmund is a risky choice, you have 100's of other options that will be more fun and less work, some of which folks have already mentioned. Madgallica listed some Explorer roses that she grows, and most of those roses are rated to zone 3 or even 2. I agree that Quadra is indestructible and even in a bad year it covers my arch comfortably. It does need an arch or something very substantial to grow on, as it gets big and is very thorny. Here's mine on a better than average year. On the north and east side of my house, it's effectively a zone 4, so this and other Explorers are great choices for me, and they mostly seem to repeat pretty well. If you're on the south side of your house, you may be flirting with zone 5b or even 6 effectively. Here's a shot with Alexander MacKenzie and John Cabot joining forces (very similar hot pink flowers) to try to climb the wall on their own. They really need some support - the canes are well over 7' tall - but I've been kinda lazy. If you're intrigued by Dortmund, you may want something further on the red end of the garden "red" (often a hot pink). Two options are The Prince's Trust and Florentina, both of which are nicely hardy and healthy in my zone, and are already getting big in their second years. I don't have full bush shots, but here's a flower from Florentina. The Prince's Trust has been intriguing me more and more lately. It absolutely was DESPERATE to grow right out of the pot - my band from Rogue Valley was easily 3' tall when it arrived, and it has put on nice growth ever since. Again, I don't have a full bush shot but it's easily 8' in each direction from the base by now in its second year. There are climbers that would work for you in almost any color scheme you would want in zone 5 (OK, purple would be a tough stretch), so let us know what you're thinking and we can help you and your rose come to a lasting and meaningful relationship (smile) Cynthia

I'm with catsrose - "I rarely shovel prune anyone still alive". I anthropomorphize my roses - they are like pets. If they get sick, I worry about them and try to make them get better. I also love to just observe what they do - roses do the most amazing things, especially old rose varieties. I am fine with waiting 4-5 years for a climber to get going - is is wonderful how a rose which has not done much for 4 years suddenly sends out thick, huge, climbing canes which go up like an elevator to 8-10 feet in one jump! Some of my roses are still surviving which were planted by my DH's grandparents and even great grandparents, so they are family heirlooms which I feel responsible for taking care of. I have new plants rooted from all of the very old ones (many of the originals have died, but they were 100+ years old), so I will not lose them. I figure the ones which survived so long (with very little care) did so because they like our climate, soil, etc. So, I plant more clones of those, as well as getting others of the same type (such as old tea roses). To my astonishment, two of my roses turned out to be very rare - one was "lost" in North America, although surviving in Australia & Europe. The other one we think may be "lost" all over the world. They have both gone back into commerce from my garden. So fun! So, the bottom line is that I am a caretaker, and a collector. The only time I shovel prune anyone is if they have some sort of horrible disease that the others might catch - this has only happened once, and it was traumatic. We only have 1/3rd of an acre, and much of that is taken up by the house, garage, and long driveway. Also we have many huge old trees, so the sunny places for roses are limited. Oh, we also have deer. However, I have found that my "expectations" - that my roses will enchant and delight me - are always met. Jackie

No worries, Joseph - and my apologies, Sheila and Vac; just to clarify - I certainly didn't mean to imply that ANY posting on an old thread was 'bad'!! I agree wholeheartedly about threads being invaluable as an information resource, with no time limit. That's always been the way on GardenWeb forums as far as I know. You used to be able to search for topics and find decades-worth of excellent advice and knowledge, on growing a particular rose for example - a fantastic resource. Not sure if we can still do this though, and my brain is too tired to think about it at the moment. It can just get a bit muddled, sometimes, I think, when people don't realise it's an old thread because they've just seen it on Houzz's more recent introduction of 'helpful' suggestions of (usually UN-) 'Related' posts and go ahead and respond to the OP, thinking it's a current question they're seeking answers to - like Lily's good example of the lady who isn't in fact still pregnant 5 years later(!) - when it really only relates to a long-ago sorted garden issue. Then more people see it and start trying to help, and we're away...! Not really a major problem, as problems go... :-) But I think maybe with all the recent blurring of the content of this specialised forum with the Modern/General Roses forum through too much indiscriminate cross-posting, it's as good a time as any to raise awareness of this other, somewhat annoying for some, muddling-up issue. I really do think keeping the forum working well and more clearly on-topic (bar the occasional mention of a more modern rose or two, and those always welcome OT posts of regular posters) will make for it being a more enjoyable and useful resource in the long-term, for all of us.