So much for the original description of "mannerly five by five shrub". At least you get repeat bloom. My first plant from Hortico grew 10', provided ONE flower at the top then grew that long again. I literally bare rooted it and moved the plant when it did that exact repeat performance. I kept propagating flowering stems to see if that would help. Nope, it was twenty years before I had a GT that bloomed more than once. He STILL demanded to be allowed to grow 10'+ before he would flower. I'm glad yours is as cooperative as it is.

Yes, he blooms very well every year around this time, and then a medium amount in waves for the rest of the Summer. In the Fall he goes crazy, and decides to put out canes which start near the top, and then go up another 8 feet or so. Since there is nothing up there to climb on, they fall over and I cut them off. No idea why that happens in the Fall, but it does every year.

Jackie

Probably likes Jackie's cooler climate, there by the bay -- more like England. I've noticed that most of the Austins in foggy, cool Golden Gate Park in San Francisco are far better flowering, looking, and behaved than out here where it's hot-as-Hades.

Very likely, catspa. Add her historic forty-plus inches of annual rain (also more like Britain) compared to our historic less than 15" annually. Of course, few of us received anything like that in the past two-plus years.

We are at about 60% of normal YTD now, but I am afraid that that will be all we will get until the Fall.

Jackie