The tomato commonly is known as Potato Top. The correct color is pink and the correct leaf form is potato leaf. So frequently you see it listed as Pink Potato Top, etc. I agree with TomTrees ... it should be called Limbaugh's Potato Top, but apparently Mr. Limbaugh is aware and acquieces to the commonly used name. Doug Oster always has given 100% credit to Fred Limbaugh for the development of Potato Top. Mr. Oster distributes the seeds free, and only asks the grower to cull out the regular leaf occurances and return the seed from the first fruit of the correct potato leaf form vines to replenish his supply for future free seed offers. Luckily for TomTrees (the dog), he has gotten wonderful potato leaf plants with delicious pink tomatoes!!! I keep getting big bull regular leaf plants with gnarly red tomatoes, dangit! Apparently there are some stray seeds, crossed seeds, or mutt genes wandering around in this particular cultivar. After two years of experience with it, I strongly suggest culling out anything that isn't a true potato leaf vine with nice big smooth pink tomatoes. Bill

Hi Bill, I agree, names did not mean much to me at first. I still don't get too fussy about them. It just happens that ShihtzuSu and I have been having a discussion about O Manitoba on other threads. So this is an opportunity for Su to see what it looks like. It happens to be one of my favorites. I agree that trying to i.d. plants is not something I especially focused on when I first started growing. But now that I belong to a club, they do want to know what it is I am giving them. Often, I tell them to grow it out then shoot me a picture. I know what I own, so I can tell them. As for store-bought O's, I don't worry too much about their names, because those are mostly kept for fun and to share with friends who crave a violet. Or for club sales. The O's I keep for myself are distinctive and easy to i.d. because one of a kind. As I do more research and develop more interest in the hobby, I get more interested in the names because it indicates something about the genetics. At a time, there are only certain ones available at retail or with growers. While the sheer quantity of hybrids is often cited as a statistic, in reality, only certain ones are available at present. Joanne

I'm with Mad Gallica - you may always be wrestling with the weight of that rose, and I'd hate to see it damage your house. You might look into a freestanding arch to let it climb over, which means you can possibly contain the monster without having to cut all the canes back. If you want to reduce bloodshed and hassle, by all means it shouldn't hurt the rose, but you may not get much bloom in the next spring as a result. Michael is quite right (of course) that we aim under normal conditions to cut no more than 1/3 of the canes in a given year, and not to prune the main canes of a climber much at all, but stretch the canes sideways on the support. Obviously you're not dealing with normal circumstances however. My experiences with a freestanding Quadra may help you envision what you want from this rose. Quadra is another monster growing, very thorny climber that is hardy in our zone 5 (and beyond). I was lazy about setting up support in its first couple of years, so mine grew into the very wide bushy shrub like yours appears to be. I finally wrestled an 8' metal arch on top of Quadra and attached all the branches I could to one of the side panels without being too systematic (this took several hours and thick gloves and clothing, so brace yourself). You'll still need something to anchor the arch to the house, or the whole thing will tip over in the wind, wrecking that work tidying. However, now that I've done that work, I don't ever have to wade into Quadra to prune it other than clearing out the dead wood (if any) and encouraging new canes to fit into one side or the other of the arch. After a couple of years, it looks more like a traditional climber, once I pulled new canes to the sides, though there still are canes in the middle that fill in with blooms. Your New Dawn looks like my Quadra did when freestanding, so it's likely to work if you're game, and you can get it tidied up now. Of course, the severe pruning will save you bloodshed now if you want to go that route, but I'd still recommend something like this as you think about supports. Here's what Quadra looked like when I first wrestled it into the arch. You can't see, but it's anchored into the brick corner behind the arch with some supports my husband drilled into the brick. You can see on the left the green velcro-type strips I use to secure it to the arch in strategic places. These are available in most garden or hardware stores. I don't have a good "before" picture, but mine looked a lot like yours when I started. Good for you to be willing to work with this rose rather than just getting rid of it (not an easy prospect either). We're happy to help with ideas. Cynthia

Lauriescreams - Thank you! I felt like I was just getting into my groove with my last garden when the decision was made to move. We did not take anything with us, our house closed a month before our new house was done being built and we stayed in a hotel for half of that with everything in storage. I am slowly getting a feel for what the plan will be with this one, my first inclination was to remove the sod on the back slope and plant on it but now I am leaning more towards trying to convince the husband that we need to terrace it with a retaining wall. I have had a few different companies out here to measure and give me quotes but so far none of the quotes have come in yet. So far the plan for the roses is to plant them in sort of an ombre' effect pattern, with the deepest colors(Young Lycidas, Darcy Brussel) in the middle going out to the lavenders(Plum Perfect, Angel Face, Heirloom, Love Song) and whites(Earth Angel, PJPII, Winchester Cathedral).