I don't know that I would wrap the rose around the fence. I think I would just pull the canes as horizontally as I could and tie them to the fence with that stretchy green tie that you can get at any home store. Training in both directions would be very pretty if you can and have the room. Sometimes the Teas can take a little time to get established. They can grow slowly for a couple of years and then they just take off. On the other hand, some of them are very vigorous from the beginning. Mrs. Dudley is one of the ones that took a little time in my garden. By the third year they should be growing and blooming like crazy. At least that is when I noticed a big difference in my garden. Climbers often take at least three years to get established and bloom well. I have all of the perennials and shrubs that you listed in my own garden and I love the way the roses look with them. Perennials, shrubs and trees were my first love, as well. In addition to the ones you listed, you might look at the hardy geranium "Rozanne". It does well in the heat here and blooms from early spring until frost. jbcarr, I lived in Columbia for 15 years before moving here. I still miss it. Except in August :-) Carol

Robert, thank you so much. They do make it a bit confusing huh?! I am not a perfectionist. Just a "rightist" (which can make you just as nuts) Proceeding with the layout of my 3 new beds will be easier now. At least in my head LOL! Now the roses just need to follow directions, riiiiight, lol. Elaine, to answer your question (and more), all of them! Actually, I bought the DA collection from J&P (bareroot) 7 plants and had a few DAs already and then just purchased 3 from Armstrong (sale 2 for 1 :-) ). Just for the heck of it here is the list of what I have (so far): Teasing Georgia Abraham Darby Charles Darwin Janet Golden Celebration The Pligrim- potted few years ago- now has a prominent spot in raised bed and doing wonderful! Windemere Crown princess Margareta Christopher Marlowe Geoff Hamilton-potted few years ago out of ignorance- in pathetic shape Falstaff Bishops Castle Geoff Hamilton-potted few years ago out of ignorance- in pathetic shape. A Shropshire Lad- potted few years ago out of ignorance- in pathetic shape. Jubilee Celebration- bareroot (knocked out of water for few hours) still doing nothing-canes. :-( Right now I just want to see the different DA and what they do. They delight me to no end! So, I guess for now I am seeing what will be happy with me and the climate. Yesterday, I went to the San Diego Rose show in Barona (first year there and not Del Mar fair grounds) and it just so happens the Indian Res. has one of the largest DA rose gardens in the States! First I heard of it. It is only a couple years old. (I will post about it.) Thanks!

Personally, because of the low height of your fence, I would think shrubs planted in front of it would be a better choice than a climber. Few climbers will be satisfied being tied to such a low level and producing their flowers there. Most are going to throw longer laterals to stick up above the fence where the flowers will require staking or tying back to the fence. Too bad Iceberg doesn't perform as well there as it does here as that would be the perfect selection to hide a shorter fence with masses of flowers. Brilliant Pink Iceberg would do the job admirably and require nothing from you here. What is there suitable for your climate which would perform similarly? That would seem ideal in my opinion. Kim

In my experience, most of the "can be trained as a climber" comments apply to warmer climates than your zone 6a. Most Austins can get huge in places like California so those kinds of comments are a warning to people without cold winters to indicate this might be an "octopus arm" Austin. I grow all of the Austins you mention and none of them show the slightest inclination of climbing in my zone 5, with the possible exception of Gertrude Jekyll who is reluctantly reaching out its one and only arm toward a nearby fence. If she would just bloom already I'd be happy (5 years and no blooms so far), and making it to 5' and bushy would make me ecstatic. It might be one of those roses that wants to get to a certain height before it blooms and it doesn't rebound from my cold winters fast enough to reach that height. I planted my Tess at the back of a bed and she still hasn't gotten to waist high after about 3 years. The Pilgrim is a little bigger - reliably 3' or so but not much bigger. Both of them bloom now and then, but they're not in ideal sun. Falstaff is the same size but he's in my virtual zone 6, and hasn't survived at all in a typical zone 5 spot. He had some nice surviving cane this winter and I'm hoping for better blooms this time around. So far he's branching out nicely. In answer to your bigger question, any time I get a long cane on any rose I tend to try to train it horizontally to encourage more laterals to grow. That increases the blooming if it will put out canes off those long branches - some roses refuse to do this, like my Crown Princess Margaretha - but most seem to try. The down side of having a few long canes stretch straight up is that you might get blooms only at the highest point of the rose. My Poseidon is like that, and I've had to do some pretty creative pruning and encouraging of the canes horizontally to get more blooms down the length of the plant. Chris at NewFlora used to chime in to recommend strategic pruning early in the season for roses like Poseidon to encourage them to branch out more. Bottom line is that I doubt you'd need to plant these near a substantial support to climb, though in zone 6 you might get more vigorous regrowth after the winter than I do. Pruning and horizontal encouragement helps with more bloom production, but you don't have to do so if you don't want to. It's your choice - while they're young I'd do no more for these than you'd do for any other rose and let the roses tell you if they want to stretch their arms farther than their immediate surroundings. Cynthia