ZD was the first of the OGRs we received at our house. She can really take a good cutting back after the bloom season, too! I also have RDV to put in the ground nearby. Its a replacement for the one that was inadvertently yanked out in a weeding frenzy... Yeah, I was as mad about it as you can imagine...

No, so long as it isn't a bareroot plant, but potted and growing, and you understand its watering needs over the summer. Given the truly marginal roses that are described as 'hardy', it is easy to run out of words to describe Explorers. If you would do it with a lilac, or any other hardy shrub, you can do it with these roses.

Hi nik, I was thinking of Mrs B R Cant which is a tea. She gets big and has nice medium pink double flowers and is not a climber but she would still work. I may get her for another spot. Jasmina does look beautiful I like the full shape of her flowers. I will have to research on if she would do well here. I found these photos of Jasmina paired with Laguna...WOW!! http://www.mein-schoener-garten.de/experten/blog/rosen_und_mehr/2012/07/07/laguna-und-jasmina-kletterrosen Teas are new to me and I got a bunch of them this year :) I hope they work out for me here. We are hot and humid but drier in the late fall winter and early spring (unless it is a wet year like the last couple lol). We have a rainy season in the summer where it can rain almost every day at least a little, just enough to steam it up and make it miserable. ~sjn

By "substantial" I mean thickness -- and those laterals are substantial enough to be considered future canes. And something to keep in mind is that if you train substantial laterals as though they were canes, and they sprout their own laterals, you'll find that the rose will not be producing as many new canes. This is because, as I hypothesize, the root system can support only so many actively-growing buds. When you prune all the laterals down to a few bud eyes, you're removing actively-growing buds -- and this sends a signal to the roots to activate buds lower down which will become new canes or basal breaks. If you instead allow the laterals to grow, then train them as if they're main canes, they'll sprout laterals of their own. This means more actively-growing buds, which tells the root system "we're good up here -- no new canes needed." Which way works for you depends on the rose -- some can flower for years on the same canes, while others' canes will be exhausted after a year or two. You'll know as you go. If the cane looks somewhat "deflated", and new growth is thin and spindly, the cane is probably exhausted and should be cut back hard. If your rose is own-root, you can remove it entirely, and a new cane can come from the roots. If your rose is on rootstock, you'll want to cut it almost all the way off, leaving a few inches of it remaining. If you look closely, you'll see the "sleeping" bud eyes -- there's usually a sort of red freckle in the middle of a thin line going around the cane. If you cut back to one of these, it'll wake up, and a new strong cane should spring forth. If you can't see them, just leave four or five inches of cane and wait to see where a new bud starts growing, then cut back to just before that. I'm not personally familiar with the rose you pictured, but based on what I see, I'd leave those laterals and let them grow. When they start to harden -- but before they're totally stiff -- I'd start guiding them to go in the opposite direction from the main cane against the wall. In your pictures, that means to the left. If and when the rest of that main cane going to the right becomes exhausted, you can cut it back to the first strong lateral, and let that lateral function as the main cane. It's all something you'll learn as you go and become familiar with your roses. You'll get a sense of when a cane is exhausted, and you'll just cut back to the first "not exhausted" growth emanating from it. Remember that more laterals will form the closer to horizontal a cane is trained, and let that guide you. If a strong lateral is growing too long for where you want it to go, just prune it back to a set of leaflets with a bud eye facing the direction where you want new growth to go. :-) ~Christopher