Here around Los Angeles, she grew like a climbing HP. She provided more flowers with better health when treated like a climber. She didn't appreciate her canes actually going lower than horizontal (they died back when lower than completely level) but did tolerate being tied in horizontally, where she would produce flowers all along her canes. Good luck! I hope she does what you want from her with as few fungal issues as possible. When she's happy, she is gorgeous. Making and keeping her happy can be the juggling act.

What Kim Said.

I grew her in a wet and mild part of England. I didn't try to train her at all. She did grow in an ungainly fashion, but I didn't mind as I had so many other plants with her, it wasn't noticeable.

Daisy

Thanks everyone! I wonder if I train her on the fence and let her have her spring flush and then cut her back would that help with keeping her healthy? But would she throw long canes again for me to tie to the fence in the spring?

Better would be to train the long canes against the fence, and after the first flush, cut just the laterals back to five or six bud eyes, and wait to see if they bloom again. Any new canes you'd train against the fence as well, after they've hardened enough to do so without kinking them. The following year, if the older canes look "deflated", they're probably finished, and can be removed. But perhaps wait until after the first flush to be sure -- sometimes you get two years out of them, sometimes three, sometimes one.

:-)

~Christopher

When we cut her long canes back too much, she never really pushed again. So I would follow Christopher's advise, and treat her like any climber -- keeping the long canes until they were clearly worn out.

No, I wouldn't prune her back after flowering. From old ARS funded floral research, the florist roses tested showed it required 35 perfect leaves to produce one perfect flower. Obviously, those were substantially lower petal counts than Mme. Isaac expresses so you could safely estimate it should take more leaves per flower. Add that that foliage helps shade those horizontal canes, preventing them from sun scalding AND they feed and support the plant's immune system, helping it to ward off fungal attacks and replenish insect damaged growth. There are examples of that statement. Iceberg in California is usually not much affected my black spot. Mildew, yes, but little black spot. Yet, if you severely prune Iceberg, reducing its foliage mass, hence the amount of food it can produce, it spots much more easily and severely. I would allow it to retain all the wood and canes possible until the following year's pruning efforts. Then, I would prune it as you should other climbers in your conditions.

I came back to clarify further what I meant by "deflated". When you see a fresh, new cane, it seems as though fully "inflated" from within. It will harden as it matures, but still have that "inflated" look, as though pumped full of water. And that's basically what it is. When these canes are trained to bloom along their lengths -- as with pegging, or being wrapped around a pillar, or fanned out against a fence -- they are more quickly "exhausted".

The first year they emerge, usually after the first flush on previous years' canes, you train them into place once they harden enough to do so. The second year, you'll see laterals break wherever the cane is between 45 degrees and horizontal. After that first flush of the first year, you trim those laterals back a bit, encouraging them to bloom again. Then look at those canes the following (i.e. their third) year and compare them to new canes which emerged during the previous season. The canes entering their third year will look as if the rose has been sucking the juice out of them from within. And that's basically what's happening. I'll usually leave them in place, just to see if they've got anything left for a first flush. As time goes by, you'll develop a sense for this. After the first flush, any "deflated" canes in their third year are cut out entirely, and last year's new canes are moved into their place. When you do this, suddenly there's room near the base for another round of new canes, which will bloom either that same Autumn, or wait until the following Spring.

:-)

~Christopher

I wonder if I train her on the fence and let her have her spring flush and then cut her back would that help with keeping her healthy? But would she throw long canes again for me to tie to the fence in the spring

I don't know your climate, but what they do here at Mottisfont with this rose, is to prune out completely at the base, the old flowering wood from last summer, which was pegged down, [they do this in February], and at the same time, they will peg down the 6-8 foot shoots that have grown up since last summer and peg them down in its place. So in effect they are constantly renewing the shrub, and not keeping any flowering wood for more than one season.

There's a segment on youtube about it.

'fragrancenutter' on the Roses forum, has a marvellous plant of this, you're unlikely to see any better, but I don't know what her pruning regime is. It's grown on a wall in a hot climate, zone 10, Australia.

My MIP is also from ARE and grew a few feet long canes the first summer. I tied them against the rebar we put along the fence and she liked it, giving me a few blooms, actually in two flushes and she's absolutely gorgeous. Yes, the scent is out of this world too. Unfortunately, rabbits chewed on most of her canes this winter and all I can do is hope for the best. But what she showed in her first year was mightily impressive. I found, however, that the spraying is a must for her in my conditions. It's a bourbon... I reluctantly did it (fungicide only, not harmful to bees and other beneficial insects) but she responded well and it was worth it.

Vestfl, I have a bourbon too. What type or kind do you spray? It will be awesome if I can see the bottle so I will know in future. Thanks :)

I want to get MIP but next time when I have my fence done. It will be a while...

Jin

Thank you Kim, Christopher, Marlorena, Daisy and Jeri for all the great advice! I will train her horizontally on the fence and just thin out the canes as they age. I am sure she will get some bs but then again several of mine do but not anything that isn't tolerable and doesn't totally defoliate my roses. I am very excited to see how she does for me!

Vesfl so sorry those bunnies ate your MIP hopefully she will recover and come back like gang busters!

Marlorena I will check out the YouTube video when I have a moment to myself, thanks.

Jin, it was Bayer, can't remember the name exactly and I'm out of town to check if it's still left in the basement after the fall cleanup. It wasn't one of their combo sprays but only a fungicide.

Cynthia, I think you may have misunderstood something. What Marlorena described isn't removing all the canes in late Winter or Spring. She means removing the canes that flowered for the first flush the previous year, but keeping the new canes that emerged after the first flush and survived the Winter. What I tend to do with 'Souvenir de Victor Landeau' -- my long-caned Bourbon -- is to wait until after the first flush before I do that, because sometimes those canes are still good for another flush or two. In a more manicured public garden, it's probably simpler to just remove last year's flowering canes and tie-in the new ones. I've seen pictures and videos of the beds with the pegged roses, and this system leaves a concentration of bloom on a few canes, with room around for companion plants. Me, I try to squeeze out as many blooms as I can for the first flush.

:-)

~Christopher

I always enjoy reading accounts of the roses I grow, in other, milder climates. I too have MIP, but here in Minnesota, she is not cane hardy in the least. Every year, I lose every cane above the snow line. Without fail. This last autumn I dumped 10 gallons worth of fallen maple leaves over her, and bundled her up in landscape fabric. We will see if this has assisted at all in keeping any cane alive. Either way, it takes her a while to wake up in the spring. By June however, I have a lovely flush of blooms that continues most of the month. Some years I have light repeat in September, some years I don't. By the end of the growing season, she has reclaimed her 6' vase shape, and we start the cycle over again. Likely this is not an experience that will help the OP, but for those who want to grow a bourbon in the cold zones, you absolutely can. Just make sure she has a vigorous, healthy root system!

Vestfl and others who are thinking of spraying, you might want to check the latest findings on fungicides and pollinators, here is a link to a NPR story, but there are lots of references via google

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/02/16/515410440/crop-protecting-fungicides-may-be-hurting-the-honey-bees

Considering how tough fungi can be, the stuff it takes to kill them must be pretty harsh and tough itself, too tough for me, my good bugs, birds, etc. If I can't grow a rose without chemicals I don't grow her, but I am happy with a far from perfect garden, perhaps you can be too ; ) On the other hand, MIP grows ok, not super troubled by BS, and repeats well for me, and that scent...heaven!

cheers

Claire

Oh, no!

Claire, Thank you for this important update. I had no idea that fungicides could be harmful to bees and other pollinators. I thought at worst they would make roses less palatable but I have a great number of perennials throughout the growing season that bees, butterflies, and other pollinators absolutely love, either rich in nectar or pollen or both... asters, rudbeckias, echinaceas, milkweed of course (nothing thrills me more than seeing those gorgeous monarch caterpillars on my asclepias), monardas, violas, forget-me-nots, lots of annual zinnias, just name it.... early in spring I've also seen them on my tommies, winter aconite and even hyacinths.

I didn't spray all my roses but only those affected by black spots. Not a chance I would do it again now. I read that neem oil is harmful mostly to nonbeneficial insects such as aphids and may go back to it as a preventive though I found it works better on some roses than others.

Christopher, thanks so much for the extra explanation! I did indeed misunderstand Marlorena's system, and that now makes more sense to me. It's like pruning out the canes after bloom cycle on once-bloomers so that the bush puts its summer energy into producing new blooming canes for next year rather than keeping the older wood alive against the odds. I still don't think it's a system that would work for me since like Rebecca I lose every bit of cane on MIP most years and I need all I can get going into the winter (I can only wish we had a snow line to provide some overall protection). It's good to hear from you Rebecca that you still get reliable bloom under those circumstances. I find a ton of difference in the bloom cycle that I can still get a fairly decent bloom if I have 6" or so of cane left to regrow from, but no bloom at all in the season if I have to prune it to the ground.

Cynthia

" Is MIP particularly susceptible to cane death if pointed downwards, or would that apply to most climbers?"

*** I suspect it would apply to one degree or another to most climbers -- but to be honest, after that experience, I never did it again. (Pegging something THAT prickly was not a lot of fun anyhow.) I think, espaliered at a slight uphill angle is safer, but that's MHO.
In our climate (which was more humid/cool in those days) very few roses blackspot. But MIP rusted and mildewed to a legendary degree. (And in those days, we still sprayed.) Which is one huge reason she doesn't live here no mo'.

Many roses will not push sap down hill, whether they're climbers or not. True climbing roses, those bred from and closely related to true climbers, will be significantly more able to retain downward hanging wood. They evolved where they had to scramble into and through tree canopies to throw their flowering wood out of them where it hangs down in the sun to ripen, flower and reproduce. It's a function of sap pressure, the ability of the plant to flow sap over long lengths of canes. The greater its ability to push sap long distances, the greater its ability to maintain downward hanging wood. Naturally, sap pushes growth against or parallel to gravity (think ground cover type growth where the canes spread out across the soil). A plant which can produce twenty, thirty and greater lengths of cane is going to be more able to support downward hanging wood than a plant which can only support six, eight or even ten feet lengths. Of course, that ability is also going to depend upon the amount of water available, the ability of the plant to absorb that water (anything that inhibits the roots will reduce the amount of sap and its pressure), extreme cold or heat and likely some other factors which aren't necessarily as obvious.

Thanks so much for the eloquent and persuasive explanations, Kim and Jeri. The difficulty of pushing against gravity totally makes sense, particularly given how it gets exponentially harder to maintain a plank after 30 seconds on my part and roses have substantially longer "limbs". Hafta mention though that my sap is flowing freely under such conditions, or at least something is dripping from my forehead.

Sounds like I need to rethink the support system for MIP or frankly (sigh) move her. I hate moving roses, being essentially lazy and trying other strategies to "make do" like stretching out her arms horizontally to visit her buddy Aloha on a neighboring shepherd's hook, and reciprocating the favor in return. I can think of a good spot about 6 feet away for MIP, but I cringe to think of her root system after 8 years not to mention the bloodletting involved even after pruning her down in the spring. Still in that new spot she could drape herself over the top of the extensively horizontal and floppy Madame Alfred Carriere and they could do their languid "I'm ready for my closeup, dahling" poses together. Sort of like Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, but with more teeth.

Interesting that our disease pressures are quite reversed, Jeri. We never get rust, and mildew only happens for about a week in the fall on a few roses if at all. Blackspot is just a way of life though not as bad as on the east coast because we're dryer. MIP is better than average for BS resistance I'd say. It's funny that the east coast is the home of blackspot and the west coast is mildew central. You'd think that proximity to large bodies of water would have similar effects, but weather is much more complicated than that. The largest bodies of water I contend with are the pools of sweat (or blood) I accumulate over a day in the garden. Yep, planning to accumulate plenty of both for moving MIP.
All the more reason you're smarter than I am boncrow for asking BEFORE you plant. Gotta try that some day (smile).

Cynthia

Too funny, Cynthia!

Cynthia I hate moving roses too but I don't know about being smarter lol. I'm glad to hear MIP is not a bs magnet for you since bs pressure is high where I live. I just had read MIP can be a diva and wanted advice on the best way to grow her so I can hopefully be successful and with all the great advice I've received from Kim, Jeri, and Christopher I am feelimg more confident. And oh btw I am terrible at holding a plank position longer than 30 seconds lol.