Hi, Frank...Argh, I am reading thru and am very embarrassed about being called the "expert"... I am a "rose dummy" to the max. Karl is the true expert... but what I do know for sure! is that every single one of my roses except for 3 were planted with a lot! of what others would call either moderately bad transplants or a nightmare transplant... My tree rose actually survived 2 horrid transplants... Baby bands... with super dilute only once a week... if in 1 gallon pots about 1-1/2 qts... If planted in a very large pot 15-25 gallons or in the ground you can pour in as much as 3 qts. Note soil has to be loose with some hand-felt dryness, but spongy, NOT PARCHED... when you initially water... Takes about a month at the very least of this super dilute dosage... Once baby bands are about 1' high or! have very large full adult sized leaves, you can start increasing incrementally to a full dosage... Young root roses...healthy ones can start with super dilute once every 5 days...but next 5 days can start increasing incrementally. Once you return to full dosage you can feed as much as once a week. Some people only need to feed biweekly because they have super rich soil... I have poor surrounding soil away from the roses, so I feed once a week... I don't pot my young root roses so they receive a gallon of water/sea tea... Nursery roses and very green healthy bareroot roses can actually receive up to 1/2 dosage 1 gallon of sea tea/water...if they are healthy on their first 5 days......Since yours is already producing undersized buds I would do the 1/4 mix for a gallon sea/water. For really sick nursery roses/bareroots like ritug's I'd do the baby band mix for the 1st 10 days (feed once every 5 days), and then start the incremental increase (which is adding a tablespoon of sea tea)right away The sea tea normal dosage is 1 TBS. per quart so the "math" is thankfully! easy to calculate...

That would be my suggestion too. A lot of climbers do the bare knee thing. I tried cutting mine back to stimulate new growth at the bottom and lost it so I don't recommend that. I think it was Jeri that said that what ever cells are needed to start new growth simply aren't present any more in those thick woody parts because it's concentrated all of them at the top for blooming. Makes a lot of sense if you think about it. I'd plant a vigorous mini or floribunda at the bottom if he wants more roses. If not a pretty perennial of some kind would work too.

I bought a Ramblin Red this summer and still don't have it planted yet. ohoh. I will probably plant pot and all in the veggie garden for the winter and see how that goes. It was in full bloom when I bought it. Looked and smelled wonderful. I hope it goes in my garden. I had a Henry Kelsey in my garden for many years. I think it may be one the mice got last year. It didn't die back for me...but was kind of slow growing. Sierra

I consider it a deep magenta pink mostly, though close to a true red when in bud. It's a sport of one of the 'explorer' series - Henry Kelsey, I think. Ted