WinterCat, Thanks for the poem! I've never run across that one before, and it's beautiful as well as botanical. I'm moderately interested in the history of rose hybridization, and plant discovery and development in general, but the lives of the people who happened to get roses named after them as a rule leave me cold. I've never cared for celebrity gossip. And, perhaps because of a minimalist element in my aesthetic composition, I don't collect plant-themed objects, or anything else, except for the plants themselves, and books. But my goal, or dream, is a very large, very complex garden filled with a tremendous variety of plants all in the place that's right for them. Much as I love both literature and gardening, I don't find a great deal of connection between them. Maybe it's like, oh, kittens: they're absolutely delightful in real life, but perhaps too charming to make good subjects for artistic interpretation. For years I've had a vague idea in the back of my mind of a garden poem, long, full, complex, rich, beautiful, like the garden of my dreams. I'm not going to write the poem, as I'm not a poet, and I haven't found that anyone else has written it, though I don't read much poetry, either. I don't believe that Dickens, that pre-eminently urban author, is commonly regarded as a notable writer of landscape description, but have recently become conscious of his sensitivity to the beauty of the countryside and his ability to describe it. From Nicholas Nickleby: [after a night of drinking and riot, ending in a quarrel] "They...emerged upon the open road,... Fields, trees, gardens, hedges, everything looked very beautiful; the young man scarcely seemed to have noticed them before, though he had passed the same objects a thousand times. There was a peace and serenity upon them all strangely at variance with the bewilderment and confusion of his own half-sobered thoughts, and yet impressive and welcome." And from Bleak House: [on a trip to visit a friend in the country] "It was delightful weather. The green corn waved so beautifully, the larks sang so joyfully, the hedges were so full of wild flowers, the trees were so thickly out in leaf, the bean-fields, with a light wind blowing over them, filled the air with such a delicious fragrance! [and the friend's garden] But indeed, everything about the place wore an aspect of maturity and abundance. The old lime-tree walk was like green cloisters, the very shadows of the cherry-trees and apple-trees were heavy with fruit, the gooseberry-bushes were so laden that their branches arched and rested on the earth, the strawberries and raspberries grew in like profusion, and the peaches basked by the hundred on the wall. Tumbled about among the spread nets and the glass frames sparkling and winking in the sun, there were such heaps of drooping pods, and marrows, and cucumbers, that every foot of ground appeared a vegetable treasury, while the smell of sweet herbs and all kinds of wholesome growth (to say nothing of the neighboring meadows where the hay was carrying) made the whole air a great nosegay." Melissa, with the help of Charles Dickens

The Polish re-named the German Schattenmorelle as Lutowvka. Pretty slow growing, bush like or small tree. I've tried it about 20 years ago but only lasted about 3 years at the orchard..winter killed eventually. I'm trying it again, Canada has named it as Rose cherry, don't think any sweeter. For our condition, zone 2 - 3 you're much better off with the U. of. Sk. cherries..Sour cherries Cupid or Juliet are one of the best from what I hear.

Vee, here's my other story.Winters in Iowa can be hellish, with ice and wind storms that often knock out power utilities nowadays, though it was even more common in the early 1960s when the incident I am about to relate happened. My grandfather (Opa) worked for the rural county electric cooperative. He was almost at the end of his career, and though he no longer did manual work, with his experience he supervised crews and told them what to do. Therefore, he was on call for any problems that came up. My mother and I were visiting her parents who, by this time, had moved to town. We had intended to drive home that evening after supper, but the weather was so threatening that we decided to spend another night. The wind was howling and the snow was coming down so thick we couldn't see the streetlight directly across the way while looking out the front door. As he could have predicted and dreaded, Opa got a call to go out to repair some downed power lines. He bundled up and left in his company truck. Mother, Oma, and I finished with the dishes and decided to go to bed early. Now, the physical layout of the house has some importance, so I'll describe it. The large living room was at the front of the house; and its focal point in the winter was the gas heater, around which several chairs were arranged. Opa's armchair was the closest because he liked to take off his shoes and put his sock feet on the fender -- his circulation wasn't very good and his feet were always cold. In the wall directly across from the heater was the door to the long hallway that led to the bedrooms. The bathroom (toilet) was located off this hall, too. Some hours after going to bed, I woke up and sprinted to the bathroom because the floor was so darned cold. Passing the door to the living room, I glanced in to see the blue flames of the heater giving off just enough light to see Opa in silhouette sleeping, as he often did, with his feet propped on the fender. I finished in the bathroom and sprinted back past the living room door. I noticed this time that Opa had changed positions and was hunched over and seemed to be fumbling with his shoes. When I got back into the bed I was sharing with my mother, she was awake and said to me, "Next!" She got up to make her own excursion to the bathroom. After that I apparently went to sleep and didn't even know when mother returned to bed. The next thing I knew it was morning and my Oma was making breakfast. The weather was still nasty, but the kitchen was heaven. As we were setting the table, the kitchen door off the back porch opened and Opa came in, knocking snow off his hat and making puddles on Oma's linoleum. She swatted at him to quit, but asked him, "How did things go?" He said he was just about frozen through; and if she didn't mind, he wanted his breakfast on a tray so that he could eat it in front of the heater. Oma was obliging. As she was arranging things, Opa called to...

You can determine whether you can grow climbers as "bushes" by asking here, on Help Me Find, your local rose societies or even trying it. Nothing gets discovered until someone tries doing it. Climate will sometimes enable you to do things otherwise not easily done. In cold climates, Ballerina is well known as a smaller shrub. Put it in a long, warm climate and it climbs. Many Austin roses do it, too. Sally Holmes is easily grown as either a climber or bush, depending upon how hard it's pruned and whether or not it's supported on walls or a trellis. Generally nearly all roses only flower at the cane ends, unless the sap flow is interrupted, either by pruning or changing the direction in which the cane grows. For those which flower primarily, or even solely on last year's growth, yes, pruning harder to encourage "bushiness" will reduce the amount of bloom. Too severe pruning can eliminate it. That's the balancing act you learn by doing. Banksiae is a huge plant, yet it can be "hedged" and grown against a wall as you would podocarpus, eugenia, even creeping fig, kept sheared and tight against large walls and it will provide some flowers because not ALL flowering growth is removed. You won't have the yards long flowering wands otherwise enjoyed, but there will be some color. Longer, more flexible climbers can be trained around shorter supports and they will flower. It requires a lot of attention and effort and the quantity of bloom will very likely be reduced, but it can be done. Victorian and Edwardian florists frequently grew once flowering ramblers as potted topiary. Those varieties were usually ten, or greater, foot climbers in the British climate and likely much larger in warmer areas. They supplied them for flower shows, holiday decorations for "great houses" and stores and flowering gifts. The "climbing" Austin roses are very much the same situation I commented about with Ballerina. Initially, when little was known of their performance in longer, warmer climates, the only size and performance information we had was Austin's catalog, based upon what he observed in Britain. You can understand the backlash when his catalog stated that Graham Thomas was a "mannerly five foot shrub", but when planted in Southern California, it could grow to fifteen feet and more, and frequently didn't flower much at all. Nearly all of his more vigorous roses can be successfully trained and used as climbers of varying heights and sizes. Any of them which produce floppy growth can be tied in to supports, bent off the vertical and grown as you would small climbers. Here in Southern California, we frequently used his thinner wooded, floppier roses, potted on trellises or tied into other growth which didn't provide color in landscaping uses. English Elegance, Lucetta, The Herbalist, and many others were best grown here in those days when used as pillar roses, on short walls or fence or even on six foot trellises. The climate and gentler pruning, allowed them to throw longer, more pliable canes which took advantage of the support, developing into climbers. Over long periods, the whole plant is going to become larger and larger, so you won't succeed trying to keep at twenty foot climber as a three foot plant, but where you can allow them to be large (ten foot or larger) masses of plant, keeping them as huge, freestanding landscape plants, can be done. The huge green bush in this shot is Fortuniana, grown at a freeway rest stop an hour or so north of where I live by our highway department. Yes, the ones which are promoted as "climbing" do get "leggy". That's what makes them useful to be trained as climbing. That legginess IS the "climbing growth". Yes, they have to be pegged, or trained against any other support to provide the flowering "laterals", just as "climbers" must. Yes, Hybrid Teas and Grandifloras which get "leggy" can often be pegged or otherwise trained as climbers, as long as their wood isn't too stiff and brittle to permit you to train them that way. Some are, some aren't. I met a gentleman years ago at a Friends of the Huntington Library plant sale who "spoke plant". If any rose "told him" it would permit him to train it as a climber, he did. His garden was on a curve on a canyon road, well known for people under estimating the severity of the curve and he frequently had people sliding off the road into his garden, until he surrounded it with a thick boulder wall with scallops of thick wrought iron. He wanted roses to cover the wall and found many of the taller, "leggier" bush roses would easily allow him to splay them out more horizontally and provide almost "climbing" results. And, why not? The prime difference between a "climbing Hybrid Tea" or "climbing floribunda" or "climbing polyantha", etc., IS how leggy, how long their canes grow. Queen Elizabeth here, is easily grown as a six foot and taller "bush". She gets "leggy". The climbing sport of Queen Elizabeth throws much longer, leggier canes. All of them genetically only flower at the cane ends. If you don't prune the bush, it will grow as tall as the resources it has available before flowering, or until something, whether it's wind, mechanical damage or its own weight causing it to bend or break, change the sap flow so it pushes "laterals", any side growth from that main cane, and flower. If you have a plant that demands to be permitted to produce long, leggy canes, try pegging it. That's what Hybrid Perpetuals and other OGR classes do and why pegging was developed. What's the difference? If the plant grows that way, treat it that way. Grandiflora flower size can be pretty much anything at least as large as you would expect from the usual floribunda. Few would accept a huge "grandiflora" bush with two inch flowers, but put four inch blooms on it and everyone is happy. Remember, "grandiflora" actually means nothing. After Queen Elizabeth hit gardens, her size didn't fit with what everyone expected from "Hybrid Teas". They had to figure out something to call her so you would have some idea what to expect from the plant and be willing to pay for it. Just as "floribunda" really means nothing. Yes, you would expect it to mean "abundant flowers", which it can mean, but it honestly tells you nothing about the genetics of the plant as "Hybrid Tea" once referred to. We've come to accept standards of performance from all three "classifications" which really have little to nothing to do with botany. Our demand for a bush to hold foliage almost to its base isn't usual for most roses. Because the canes taper as they grow upward and the adhesion factor of water causing it to rise above its own level in tapered tubes; combined with transpiration, the plant actually "sweating" through the stomata, the pores on the undersides of the foliage; and the plant using the sap to lengthen themselves and produce flowers and hips, sap pressure is greatest at the cane tips. Sap flows upward very quickly, bypassing the lower buds and foliage, essentially starving them almost as quickly as new growth shades them out, causing the plant to shed them. Leaves exist to photosynthesize food; provide shade against extremes of cold, light and heat and to provide transpiration to produce sap pressure. If they are shaded from at least the threshold of sunlight required for photosynthesis, the plant no longer gains benefit from them, so they remove the sap from them, causing them to yellow and fall. That's what we mean by the leaves "getting old". Depending upon the genetics of the rose, some will only last a few weeks to months, as with some short season species, while some will remain healthy and productive for the full year, such as evergreen Teas, Chinas, Banskiaes, etc. "Disease resistance" can partially depend upon how long-lived those leaves are. Rust and black spot seem to actually be used by some species to help trigger them to shut down, harden off, before extreme winter conditions arrive and damage the plant. Many roses either inherited the susceptibility to the diseases from some of those species, or never developed the resistance because the diseases weren't supported in the places those roses evolved. Then, we come along and plant those plants where the climates and conditions support the diseases and the roses contract them, losing foliage and becoming bare. Finding roses which DON'T develop "bare legs" is the exception, not the rule. Unfortunately, no classification will really cue you in on which should be expected to do that. But, generally, those which have twiggier growth as opposed to the upright, straight canes we associate with climbers, HTs and some floribundas, SHOULD do a better job of providing that foliage cover lower on the plant, closer to the ground. As long as their disease resistance in your climate and conditions permits them to retain the foliage, they SHOULD be better able to keep themselves covered. Because that growth isn't commonly associated with HTs, "shrub" is now more regularly used as their "class", but it doesn't guaranty that performance. As has been suggested before, "shrub" simply means it doesn't it any other classification. But when you consider they're really all either climbers or bushes (or both), almost any of them might be considered as "shrubs", depending upon climate and what you do to them. Don't kick yourself for "making mistakes". You're going to increasingly find that what you're asking, no one else knows, either. The more you learn, the fewer people there are who know MORE. An "expert" is simply the person who knows one more thing than you do. None of us knows everything, None of us can guaranty how a plant is going to perform in your garden, because none of us has experience with your garden. Something may be perfect in your front yard and a disaster in the back yard. Conditions can dramatically vary in just a few feet. And, every one of us has made many mistakes and will make many more. Nothing new is learned without making a lot of mistakes. No one learned you could grow some Austin roses as climbers until they made the mistake of trying to make bushes out of them. No one learned you can whack the dickens out of monsters like Banksiae and Fortuniana and have them still flower until someone made the mistake of trying to grow them where they couldn't be allowed to eat their house. We didn't learn which roses would tolerate more shade until we made the mistake of trying to grow them where they wouldn't receive the sun levels we were told they required. As long as you are comfortable paying the prices, keep experimenting. The more you experiment, the more you discover and learn and the faster you become "The Expert"!