Kathi...it's been there all week....I posted about it...sorry you didn't see it and missed out playing all week. I imagine it will be gone tomorrow. I'll miss it...what's the next Holiday?

I think the choice of how one trains a climber is a personal decision, based on individual taste. You might get more laterals on a cane trained more horizontally, but a fan-shape might just look more graceful in some situations (it mimics the shape of an arching rose bush left wild more closely than one trained strictly horizontally). There is no one way to do this, which makes things more interesting! When training a rose in a fan shape, I'd focus on getting the fan wide enough to get the canes at an angle -- not letting them be "mostly vertical" as you state above. Does that make sense? The trellis is just a support -- the rose itself doesn't have to exactly follow the lines of the trellis.

If I wanted to put a trellis on either side of this Sally Holmes climbing rose, would be some good companion plants? Maybe different Clematis on each side, growing to about 15 feet high? What other climbing vines would look good against the white Sally Holmes rose?

The objections to this planting were: a) The Clematis should not be in the same container as the root systems will compete b) The Clematis old wood may get drowned out by the more dominant Lavender Trumpet Vine What if I replant the Clematis on the right side at the base of the large container? That way it grows in a separate soil and would climb up the side of the container and at least be able to display along that run until it gets to the trellis and gets out-competed by the Lavender Trumpet Vine? If that works well, I might end up growing a different variety of Clematis from the base of the container on the left side. If the only thing I got from that was unique flowers below the slip of the container on each side, that would be worth doing.