Welcome back, Josh! I'm wondering if the clematis to which you're referring is the one I'm picturing -- the cultivar of Clematis armandii. From what I remember, that may get too big for the arbor. If you already have them planted, I think that should be enough. If you want color for later in the season, consider some type of annual climber -- like Thunbergia alata. Or maybe a Passiflora. Or, perhaps a Type-3 clematis, which you can cut back hard in Spring. Keep in mind that, if I guessed correctly on the clematis you already have, you'd be adding a climber to join an evergreen climber. :-) ~Christopher

First, I love the Cypress Vine idea, I did some research and they're in the Morning Glory family; it doesn't re-seed easily, they would need to be soaked or sanded. But I love the vine. The other choice is back to Clematis. Nobody agrees on ones that can live in shade because I think it's different for everyone. Are they in microclimates? What zone is it? Do you ever water? Me - not so much. So I'm going to have to think about this whole idea and try to run a nursery at the same time. I am so far behind on my own yard it's actually a joke. That's why I like Clematis. Most of them just crawl up and sit there. Hmmm. Thank you for the clematis forum, I already saw that, there's like 30 clematis that people list that grow in shady areas, however that doesn't mean zone 6. I was hoping for a clematis expert who could say "try one of these 5 vines they'll get huge and can handle shade". There's a lot of experts floating around out there. Thanks everyone.

LIV - I'm in zone 5 too and I have a lot of climbers, so you're right to ask for advice before you get too far in your plans and work too hard. We want you to enjoy your roses rather than get disappointed in your first planting, so that's why we're being discouraging about your original plan and encouraging other roses or combinations of where to plant what you have and what you could have. You can plant these NDs but I really wouldn't recommend in front of the house. You could probably prune very hard each year and keep New Dawn a modest size, but odds are you'd also be cutting off most of your chances for rebloom or even a first bloom if you're trying to rein it in. Roses tend to bloom best at their preferred size, and climbers are particularly notorious for not wanting to bloom much until they've spent some time at their height where they want to bloom. That's why we in cold zones want to plant tip-hardy roses that keep their canes after the winter so they can keep growing taller and putting out more laterals. Any climbers will bloom better if you can tie the initial canes horizontally to allow them to put out canes growing up off that sideways cane (we call these laterals). If you don't want a couple of "powder puff" blooms on the end of a tall narrow climber, that's the kind of treatment you want to do for the rose. The narrow width of your trellis doesn't really allow much room for the canes to be bent sideways and as others have said if ND is happy in this spot it will actively and aggressively pull it off your house and attack you and your neighbors when they come to the door. So here's your dilemma if you try to leave the NDs in the front of the house where you have them: scenario 1 - like mine your NDs will not grow beyond knee high in 3-4 years and never bloom, eventually dying, so you're disappointed scenario 2 - your NDs are happy with this spot in front of your house and grow to the size of anything like Oakley's or Daisy's, totally outgrowing this space and making you and your neighbors unhappy scenario 3 - you vigorously and constantly prune back a happy ND to the point where it is now unhappy and puts out only leaves with no blooms I'd opt for scenario 4, where you put them to the sides of your house where they can expand to their heart's content if they're happy, or they won't wreck your vision for the front of the house if you're unhappy. There's a circle off to the left of the original photo that could probably rein in one of the NDs, and there's (unnecessary?) grass beyond that on the side of the house that you really didn't want to mow, did you (smile)? You asked about the type of support that can hold a happy ND in our zones, and my suggestion would be something like the 8'x6' arch where I have a vigorous and aggressively happy Quadra (yes, that's all one rose): If you find that after putting the NDs under an arch like this at the side of your house you end up with scenario 1 and the scrawny runts look ridiculous under the arch, that now becomes an excuse to buy more roses (something we all can help you do with glee). You won't know however if you have a happy ND for about 4 years, since that's how long it takes climbers to mature so be patient and let the set down roots for a while. Moving the roses now when you've just planted them won't set them back particularly but moving them next spring or the next when they start to overgrow their space may delay them maturing even longer What I'd recommend is not putting a rose on the trellises next to the front door. Those are ideal spots for the Jackmanii clematis and that's a vigorous enough clematis to more than fill those trellis spots. Here's what Jackmanii can do if you let it spread out to its heart's content - this is the purple spread out all along the back side of a maybe 10' square cage for my blueberries (again this is one clematis plant): You can contain Jackmanii more narrowly on your trellises but be prepared for a lot of foliage to rein in and encourage on the trellis. This is a different purple clem on the double shepherd's hook (swamped) plus a truly thuggish pink Princess Diana clem attacking a rose on the right. So, if you put the clematis on the trellises by the door, and ND to the side or sides of your house, you now have trellises that are open on the far ends of your house. If you want a rose there, you want something that will naturally stay narrow. Embothrium's suggestion of Aloha is a great one, and mine is cane hardy for me in zone 5. It stays no wider than about 3' if it has something to climb or lean on, and I can get away with loosely attaching mine to another shepherd's hook rather than a trellis, but it would prefer something like a trellis I'm sure. Do be aware that roses need to be attached (like with pantyhose strips or those green velcro plant holds) as opposed to clematis that attach themselves to things. Here's Aloha fairly early in the summer before she has put out a lot of laterals - you can see I hooked her under the support and she's just now starting to bloom off the sides that are facing vertical. She'll pretty much hide the hook by the end of the season, but you can tell that she's relatively happy being tall and narrow. Other hardy roses with similar narrow growth habits include Poseidon (a lavender) or Queen of Sweden (pink fluffy blooms) - neither of these are really climbers but they'll get to 6' or so in our zone and can either be attached to the trellis or climb in front of it. You'd have the option of putting the clematis on these side trellis panels too and then the tall narrow rose in front, and letting some of the tendrils of the clematis twine around the rose for the effect. Jackmanii is a vigorous enough clem to overwhelm a whole lot of climbing roses in our zones, so this might keep yours from being swamped. You can see in the clem photo previously that Scepter'd Isle (another relatively narrow growing rose) is totally being pulled off its usual 6' height by the clem and it's bending down to the height of the 3' A/C unit. The Canadian roses (like Quadra) could handle Jackmanii, but I don't know of any that climb that will stay narrow or mannerly enough for the spaces you have. You might not be able to find the roses we discuss at average nurseries or other stores around town, but there are several nice Canadian mail order nurseries that would sell you these roses at $20 or so, which is quite reasonable and they have great quality plants with more choices. You'd want to wait till spring to plant these though, since it's not an ideal time to plant roses to have them put down a good root system. You're of course free to plant what you want where you want it and if you're happy it's not a wrong choice, but we're sharing some advice to help you avoid frustration if possible. Cynthia

Mary, this is a very good question. If this is your first clem, I want to caution you about the fragility of the stems. Once bent, they may not recover, so leaving them attached to the nursery stake may help prevent that. Some are super hard to remove. Also, even though the stems at the base may be brown or gray and look dry, they're not dead. There are lots of green stems and leaves attached to the dry, brown stem, farther up. You are no doubt a lot smarter than I am, but I learned that the hard way by cutting out all the parts I thought were dead, only to find I had cut off all the new growth.