Grandmother's Hat will be a tough, vigorous rose for you, and generous of bloom. You might occasionally see some blackspot, in a particularly wet, warm spring, but it is otherwise very much a disease-free rose here. (For this reason, my husband plants it EVERYWHERE.) You may plant it and just leave it alone, and it will grow easily 7 ft. tall, but only maybe 4 ft. wide. Wider at the top, narrower at the bottom. You might, instead, espalier it along a fence, as a moderate climber to 6-7 ft. OR you can prune it like a Grandiflora, in which case it will make a 4-to-5-foot round and tall BALL of a plant, with blooms all over. The rose doesn't care. She'll do what you want. You will have maximum bloom if you deadhead after each flush, but for the first couple of years, I would not deadhead HARD. I'd just snap off blooms, until the plant is well-established. The only thing she DOESN'T much like is hot, dry, Santa Ana winds, which will crisp her blooms in a nanosecond. Remove them, and she'll make more. We grow her in morning sun, afternoon sun, all-day sun -- in great air circulation, and less-good air-circulation. She doesn't seem to care. We even grow her under a huge seedling avocado tree, where she blooms away like mad. Jeri

I agree with Kathy, the taller the better. I have some 6 ft obelisks and I quickly realized they are just too small for most roses. The one you are looking at is very pretty! I also made the rebar ones but I used 10 ft rebar, drove it 18 inches into the ground and that still left me a little over 8 ft above ground. It took a very few minutes to make them and they disappear visually once the rose grows. I grow clematis with all of my climbers and it is just a matter of what color combinations you like together. The type III clematis are the easiest because you cut them back hard in the spring when you prune your roses. Carol

I'll have to take a look at those videos. I myself did something far, far more mistaken than trying Alex. G. on a tripod,Sheila; putting Rene Andre on a path with the idea of training it over an arch. HA! Somehow I didn't take into account that Rene A. can get to be almost 7 meters tall,(or maybe I got it confused with something else), and in any case I didn't take it's growth habit and thorniness into account...fact is, I've wound up with a wild thorny mess with which I just can't cope! I 'm not even going to try to move this monster; I'll just take cuttings and then chop it down. Likewise I learned the hard way that New Dawn ,in my climate, is a thuggish behemoth that should be regulated to out-of-the-way areas of the garden where it can be left to it's own devices. You chose wisely, Cori-Ann,in avoiding true climbers/ramblers. In hot climates things can just get so big. Another example:Louis Mon Ami. On the Lens Roses site, this is described as being of " croissance modérée, indiqué pour couvrir poteaux, clôtures et treillis." Height: 300-400 cms. Hohoho ,what a joke. In my garden it's become so huge that it can't be contained on a structure at all; I've tried planting a Paulownia tomentosa tree sort of under it, hoping that the tree will grow fast and big enough to support the rose. I was thinking of trying this with Rene, too, and put a cypress nearby, but the fact that this unruly rose is on a path has made me change my mind.

oh gosh that's gorgeous...what a lovely summerhouse or whatever you use it for.. I'd love that, and the pergola too... I can see what you mean... I've never grown GJ as a climber so I'm not certain of her abilities to reach, but certainly the top of those posts should be attainable.. I'm not sure how much further she would go across the top.. Of course if that was mine I would get carried away.. and this is what I would do.. I see you have another post on the left close to the grass... I would remove about 18 inches of grass all along from left to right in front of the paved area, and right where that post is I would plant a 'Mme Alfred Carriere' rose or some other of one's choice.. I would infill the whole length of the strip with annuals or low perennials, whatever.. otherwise that post is going to waste and I'd want to make use of it with another rose... Love the boulders too...