Ratdogheads - my Henri Matisse stays between around 3-4 feet in a mostly sunny spot, but might be a little larger in a full hot sun location. Suffice to say that planting it behind my Champagne Moment was not one of my brighter ideas, and it involves some judicious pruning to make both of them visible. Redwolfdoc - welcome to the fun of rose growing, and always feel free to start a new thread on a topic where it might get more response. I checked the website HelpMeFind, a TERRIFIC website for roses and well worth the optional membership fee, to look up Blue Angel. Both the regular and climbing versions of Blue Angel appear to be on the edge of reported hardiness for our zone, but those are default ratings so not anything to discourage you. If that rose has survived your winters, that's already a good start. Blue Angel cl. is reported to only bloom on old wood, which means that it won't bloom well if it has to regrow from dying back to its roots or graft each year, which is typical of some types of climbers that survive but don't thrive in our zones. Still, 3 seasons is still way too soon to make a judgment about a climber. They tend to spend more time than non-climbing forms in putting down roots and preparing to make their moves, so if it grows some or is at least green and healthy-looking in the active seasons, you might give it some more time. In my world, alfalfa hay or pellets is always a good thing to add to a rose to boost its production a bit in spring. To give you perspective, my Madame Isaac Periere - that is definitely hardy in my zone - was unexciting and unremarkable for 3-4 years while it was putting down roots. Then last spring in its fifth (?) year, it absolutely ate up every rose near it and was stunning in the spring. There's a standard rose wisdom that for roses, first year sleep, second year creep, third year leap. For climbers, you have to give them another year or two of creeping or sleeping before you get leap years. Hope this helps, and welcome to GW! Cynthia

Mike, I had two 50 ft. lengths of drip hoses wound in, out and around the plants with mulch covering them - all throughout the garden in the veggie garden. The mulch was piled on 8 inches thick or thicker under and around them. I put covers over the tomatoes in late July through August. I have good well water, so no chlorine that can damage plants. Notwithstanding all that I did, when temps reached 110-120, everything just turned brown, and then blister beetles ate what was left. I had tall, dark green, beautiful corn plants with 2-3 huge ears on each plant, but upon checking them, they had few developed kernels. Total loss. I planted more than one hundred tomatoes (seven varieties), corn, beans, cantaloupe, watermelon, bell peppers, three types of hot peppers, Red bells, zucchini, and onions. Normally I get enough to can, freeze, eat fresh and sell at the Farmer's Market & Health Food stores and still have enough to donate to the Food Bank. Not last year. The only tomatoes I got were a handful from the plants I grew in large pots, but only a few. They were sure good though. Cherokee Purples were especially yummy and the Lemon Boys. I think I got about 20 tomatoes altogether. I got more than everyone else around here. Their plants kicked it in June and July. I did get some okra from the plants in the smaller, lower garden and a few pitifully small Early Girl tomatoes, and a pretty good harvest of Jalapenos in September when it cooled down a bit, but that was all. I put so much work into it and expense. But it was just too hot. It was like standing inside a furnace ever day. I lost several small trees, one large weeping willow and several Eponymous shrubs. And what the heat didn't kill, the voles did, chewing the roots off several of my roses. What a horrible year! Sorry to go on about it...

I was always curious about medlar. Does it really taste like apple sauce when properly ripened? I will use my fruits fresh and juices, jams, and jellies mostly. All the plants are small now, but I hope i'll get good yields in the coming years. Rose hip makes delicious jam. I bought some rose hip jam from Croatia in the ethnic food section of my grocery store and it's amazing. I love rose hip jam on a english muffin with butter. MMM :) I have a big freezer so that helps. I like driving up to Michigan to pick grapes. Sometimes I get 10 5 gallon buckets full of delcious Niagara and Concord grapes for juice, fresh eating, and jelly. This year I might make wine as I've been researching it a lot lately.

I think once they hit the top of the fence they would tend to grow horizontally and / or arch downward. Generally I think climbers should be encouraged to grow horizontally though, because horizontal branches produce more blooms (from offshoots trying to grow up), whereas vertical ones want to bloom only at the at the tippy top. But perhaps a more expert gardener climbers can explain it better. Put it this way, though, I wouldn't discourage you from planting Kathleen and seeing how it goes.