Ratdogheads - my Henri Matisse stays between around 3-4 feet in a mostly sunny spot, but might be a little larger in a full hot sun location. Suffice to say that planting it behind my Champagne Moment was not one of my brighter ideas, and it involves some judicious pruning to make both of them visible. Redwolfdoc - welcome to the fun of rose growing, and always feel free to start a new thread on a topic where it might get more response. I checked the website HelpMeFind, a TERRIFIC website for roses and well worth the optional membership fee, to look up Blue Angel. Both the regular and climbing versions of Blue Angel appear to be on the edge of reported hardiness for our zone, but those are default ratings so not anything to discourage you. If that rose has survived your winters, that's already a good start. Blue Angel cl. is reported to only bloom on old wood, which means that it won't bloom well if it has to regrow from dying back to its roots or graft each year, which is typical of some types of climbers that survive but don't thrive in our zones. Still, 3 seasons is still way too soon to make a judgment about a climber. They tend to spend more time than non-climbing forms in putting down roots and preparing to make their moves, so if it grows some or is at least green and healthy-looking in the active seasons, you might give it some more time. In my world, alfalfa hay or pellets is always a good thing to add to a rose to boost its production a bit in spring. To give you perspective, my Madame Isaac Periere - that is definitely hardy in my zone - was unexciting and unremarkable for 3-4 years while it was putting down roots. Then last spring in its fifth (?) year, it absolutely ate up every rose near it and was stunning in the spring. There's a standard rose wisdom that for roses, first year sleep, second year creep, third year leap. For climbers, you have to give them another year or two of creeping or sleeping before you get leap years. Hope this helps, and welcome to GW! Cynthia

Glad my list was helpful! Richard - that idea of growing Lunar Mist and Colette across from each other would be just lovely and nicely complementary. I'd forgotten that they're related, but you're right the flower forms would do nicely together. Here's a picture of Lunar Mist, a portion of the sprays from late May last year (it's also an early bloomer) - look at all the big fat buds ready to pop soon: Here's a corresponding picture of my young Colette (nothing as lovely as Diane's, but there's still time). You can see the apricot shading in cool weather that would complement Lunar Mist well. And speaking of Diane - heavens, I appreciate the complement but EVERYONE on this forum knows many things about roses I do not, yourself included. The topic happens to be something I've had a lot of experience in, namely ROSES THAT DIE IN ZONE 5. I've now officially killed more roses than I have in my yard, so it's one claim to fame (however dubious). The climbers I can indulge in because of that big black fence all around the large-ish back yard. Let's see - to tempt you on the zone 4 and below climbers that will easily eat that trellis for lunch, let's start with Quadra below. He's very thorny and needs to be trained when young, and in your case I might put him behind the protective wall and let him smother the arch and keep from poking people in the trellis too badly. This is one Quadra bush I mistakenly grew as a bush for about 5 years and I lost a lot of blood trying to wrestle him into this arch for about 3 hours. In my list above, I meant John Cabot. My John Davis isn't really big enough to climb yet. Here's a sample of John Cabot growth, with Alexander MacKenzie just visible off to the right (the blooms are VERY similar). I really need something for them to grow on next year. I'd mentioned Polka - here's a modest spray from a few years back that shows the color progression. It fades from a deep apricot to a pale cream over time. This plant was about 5' at the time and supported itself. Now it's stretched over a pedestal horizontally (one bend in the stiff canes) and I'm making it put out more laterals. Mostly it could support itself. Here are several climbers all mushed in together (I like rose chaos) in a good spring a few years ago. From left, the dark pink is Laguna, the light pink Madame Bovary, the white is Cornelia (hybrid musk), the light pink is Bonica, and the yellow is Elina. The last three aren't officially climbers, but they can get pretty big in a good year - the fence is 6' tall. I don't think any of them would climb an arch though. Here's my favorite shot of Dames des Chenonceau (far back at right, pinker) and Champagne Moment (cream at the right) in a good year (2013) where they absolutely overwhelmed the 3' wire fence they're behind. They wouldn't cover your arch but would make a great statement up each side of it on their own. Even in an average year like last year, they flop out widely and reliably at a good 6-8 of cane with profuse blooms, even if pruned back severely. Here's an arch shot that includes Mme. Carolyn Testout (pink to the left of the arch) and Harlequin (pink picotee to right of arch, appears mostly pink from here). Lots of other roses in the way, as I say 2013 was a good year. Here's Reine des Violette - since mine is the "not" RdV, it only blooms once and is thorny, but if you get the real one (Burlington has it), it reblooms and isn't thorny. That's a good consideration by a seat placement, and it smells heavenly. Lastly, here's a shot of Rosarium Uetersen. It is growing low here but the plant stretches from way to the right side clear to the left of the picture, and the color is a more coral tone than this picture shows. Have fun making your decision! Of course we want to see the pictures against that elegant looking seated arch. Cynthia

It's the "Harvest Superpower" organic potting mix from Lowe's in the pink and black bags. HARVEST 32-Quart Organic Potting Soil Reviews While many reviews were complimentary I did notice: The soil is heavy when wet for potting purposes I added perlite to the mix to lighten the soil for better drainage and young seedlings that didn't like the heavy soil. After this was done my plants did much better. I've used this in combination with a few other organic mixes and really like the base this one provides. It's a bit heavy by itself, depending on your particular use, but a great product. Have purchased on multiple occasions. Harvest Organic potting mix is the worst mix I have ever used. It contains way too many wood chips and the wood chips are much too large. I had to screen the mix just to be able to use it. I have tried many organic mixes, Espona, Miracle Grow, Happy Frog and others, which I will buy again. I will never buy Harvest again. I regret that it is the only brand that Lowe's sells. Surprised that this soil is being sold. It was of such poor quality, I did not use it. First of all it was filled with water and had a muddy consistency. It had a mildew/mold growing on the surface and throughout the bag. I set it out for the garbage man to take. The organic label is what sold me on this soil, but after giving it some thought all "soil is organic". I would rate it lower if I could. IMO in your pix the media looks soaked/saturated.

Below is the info. that Floweraremusic (zone 5) in Washington gave on her 2020 winter-survival. She has alkaline clay with rocks at bottom like mine & less snow in winter: "My hardiest roses are the Canadians. John Davis, John Cabot, Wm. Baffin, Morden Sunrise, Morden Blush and Morden Centennial, Victorian Memory aka Isabelle Skinner, also a Canadian rose. All these only have tiny bit of tip damage and bloom a lot with no special care. Also, my Hybrid Perpetuals only have tip damage after winter. Magna Charta, Mrs. John Laing, Black Prince and Marchesa Buccella. The only negative is they don’t have long enough cutting stems. All my Austins are very hardy. The one I just can not grow is Jude. Leonardo da Vinci is super hardy and always healthy. Quietness comes through winter very well. Even Rouge Royale survives beautifully. Cinderella Fairy Tale is very hardy. Gruss an Aachen also. Ballerina and Marjorie Fair are both hardy. Poseidon, Princess Charlene de Monaco and Crazy Love didn’t do as well as I’d hoped. The surprise losses this year are Quicksilver, and Dames de Chenonceau who is left with only 1 cane. Versigny is also reduced down to almost nothing. This was a mild winter with very little snow. " Floweraremusic (zone 5). From StrawChicago (zone 5a with hard black-gumbo alkaline clay & less snow but with freezing rain in winter). Versigny didn't survive winter either. So I lost Versigny TWICE. Besides Versigny, other wimpy own-root roses that don't survive winter well: Paul Neyron, Anna's Promise, Pink Peace (own-root died 1st winter, but grafted-Pink Peace survives many winter), Elantyne, Jude the Obscure, Young Lycidas (bought as grafted-on-Dr.Huey, now with only one cane), Mary Daly, and many floribundas don't survive my zone 5a: Pink Chiffon, Sheila's perfume, King Arthur, Deep Purple, Shocking blue, Honey Bouquet (survived 1 winter). Polka Climber (survived 1 winter), Cloutilde Soupert (died twice on me). Sutter's Gold didn't survive winter, same with many fragrant mini-roses from Burlington nursery. Below are my hardy OWN-ROOT roses in my zone 5a alkaline clay, only Double Delight, Young Lycidas and Lavender Crush are grafted-on-Dr.Huey. Bold-faced are the very vigorous ones: Own-roots with 3 feet of green canes: Carding Mill (since 2012), Princess Charlene of Monaco, Duchess de Rohan, Crown Princess Magareta (since 2012), Zepherine Drouhin, Lady of Shalott, James Galway, Lavender Crush, Queen of Sweden (gave away but very hardy), Poseidon (right below the rain-spout, dug down to 2.5 feet), Scepter'd Isle (very big & hardy own-root but gave that away with its lousy scent). Own-roots with 2 feet of green canes: La Reine (many winters), Blue Mist (since 2012), Prairie Harvest (since 2014), Mary Magdalene (since 2011), Evelyn (since 2012), Radio Times (since 2011), Pat Austin (since 2011), Christopher Marlowe (since 2011), Golden Celebration (since 2011), Lilian Austin (gave away but very hardy), the Squire, the Dark Lady, Wise Portia survived 4 winters but died in poor drainage clay, Dee-lish (since 2015), Twilight Zone (since 2016), William Shakespeare. 2000 (since 2011), Comte de Chambord (since 2012), Princess Anne, Sweet Mademoiselles, Aloha climber, Orchid Romance, Bohemian Rhapsody, Marie Pavie, Lagerfeld (since 2017), Frederic Mistral survived 2 winters but died when I didn't winter-protect with leaves, Sonia Rykiel (survived 3 winters) but died in freezing rain winter, same with 1/4 of the street-trees in my neighborhood, Excellenz von Shubert (since 2013), Own-roots with less than 1 foot of green canes: Gina's rose, Tchaikosky (since 2015), Cornelia (since 2018), Bolero (few winters), Peter Mayle, Sharifa Asma, Neil Diamond, Amber Queen, A Shopshire Lad, Strike it Rich, Old Port (since 2012), Veteran's Honor (many winters), Double Delight (grafted on Dr.Huey), Savannah, Tess of d'Uberville, Gene Boerner (since 2014), thornless Yves Seedling (since 2013), Stephen big Purple (since 2012), Louise Este, Mirandy, Crimson Glory, Liv Tyler survived 1 winter but needs winter-protection, Rouge Royal (bought last year with no winter-protection). Annie L. McDowell (survived 2 winters but needs a wet-spot since it's almost thornless), Nahema (survived 1 winter then died during freezing-rain winter), same with Eyes-for-you (drought-tolerant and doesn't like freezing wet winter), Souvenir du President Lincoln, Madame Issac Pererie and Madame Earnest Calvat, Firefighter (survived 2 winters) but died since it's next to tree. Bayes Blueberry (survived many winters but I gave away), Charles Darwin (gave away since it fades badly), Arthur Bell (since 2012 & killed it since I don't like the flowers). StrawChicago.