Ken's right (as usual)- you can cut it to a couple of inches and it will grow back. I have several Roses of Sharon, and I love them, but they are, with all due respect, weeds. There are many flowering shrubs that need special pruning, but these aren't the ones. ROS bloom on new growth, and to keep the flower count high, you need lots of new growth, which will only come with ruthless pruning. I usually cut the strong upright branches in half or more, and the more lateral branches pretty much to stubs, as I need them columnar where they are planted. We have a row planted along our neighbor's driveway (with their concurrence) for privacy for both of us, and those I let get bigger and don't prune them as much unless a branch gets in the way. Since you are in MA, your ROS is probably not fully leafed out yet, so prune away.

hoovb, thank you for the links. The pruning pictures are great and I love to see things like this. More importantly, thank you for the website. It's wonderful, I just lost myself in your photos for the longest time. Such beauty! Thank you for sharing it. :)

You should not prune any roses severely in the fall. Pruning will stimulate new growth that will be lost over winter. In your zone your winters are milder than mine but you do still have them. The roses store energy for the next spring in those canes. If you cut them off in the fall you deprive the rose of that needed energy and risk losing the rose in the spring. If you are concerned about the long canes whipping in the wind over winter stake and tie them so they won't do that. Those canes coming up from the ground in front of the bud union are not going to be your original rose. They are the root stock coming up. Probably Dr. Huey which is a once blooming red climber. The fact that it only blooms once a year is another reason not to prune it now if you wish to keep it. Once bloomers only bloom on old, last years, wood. Which is why it did not bloom this year on those new canes. If you prune those canes off now it will not bloom next year either. Once bloomers should only be pruned immediately AFTER they have finished blooming in the spring. That way it will have the rest of the year to grow back canes to bloom on next spring. The best time to transplant any rose is in the late winter or early spring while the rose is still dormant. If done properly the rose will hardly notice that it has been moved. Prep a big hole in the new spot first then dig out as big a root ball as possible and move it to the new site and replant. Keep it watered and wait for it to start to show new growth before adding any kind of fertilizer. It will need to replace some of the fine feeder roots and they will be very tender and could burn if fertilized too soon.

Thanks. In all honesty the roses weren't that hard to move. Except for the Lady Banks. The Vitex(Chaste Tree), bottlebush, Gardenias, and the Lady Banks about killed me though. I would actually say the majority of my roses aren't modern. I have a few, but the majority are old or at least old style (David Austin). I am glad Love Song didn't die on me, it literally took about 10 months of removing suckers. Of course I had let two big suckers grow for about 9 months before I realized they were suckers and not Love song.