Janice: If you mean the climbing Colette, yes. I have one on an arbor and it does very well here. Not as fast growing as some other climbers I have but worth the wait. It's a well behaved rose and not huge by any means, making it great for a small arbor. Extremely prolific and it reblooms. The blooms do get a little singed in the high heat, but then again, lots of them do.
Here's two pics. of it. It starts out a peachy pink and fades to soft pink. Nice fragrance, too, LOTS of little thorns, but not those huge honkin' kind.

Oh, Mike, I love the form and color!
Does it bloom continuously or on and off?
Do you have others you like? We just put in a new arbor and am looking at what roses to put on it.
I don't want one of those once or twice a year blooming wonders...like I have in other spots.

Tough question, Janice. Mine has one really big "flush" from April to the end of May. It does rebloom throughout the summer but not as heavily, but enough...if that makes any sense ! It slows down when it gets really hot (and HUMID) in August and September, but it's getting ready to do a final flush right now.

I can't be an expert on climbers as I only have a few climbers and my oldest is only 2 years old & isn't very proliferate with blooms (Orange Velvet). I put up an arbor earlier this year & put Purple Splash on one side & Harlequin on the other. I'm not too impressed with the colors on Purple Splash (more like Red Splash, but first year roses usually have different colors than 2nd year roses for me for some reason when they're a bareroot), but Harlequin was to die for. She was very generous with her blooms, big big pink & white, smells quite lovely. She also grew about 2' in the 2 months that she was in that spot (put her there in like July and I stop encouraging growth in mid September). I also have Lady Banks but she didn't bloom at all this year for some reason. Theresa Bugnet (http://www.helpmefind.com/rose...) is a nice pink bloomer, but talk about prickly!! I have one other climber, can't remember the name off the top of my head, but produces these teensy little nickle-sized blooms in a pompom shape. Really cute, but really teeny!!

just looked at my old emails from RU. The rose is Rose Marie Viaud. http://www.helpmefind.com/gard... But I'm not sure if the rose has.. mildew or something as the leaves always have a white .. something on them. Not a powdery stuff, but just.. white. Dunno. Thinking about moving both roses to an area that gets more sun. This picture on HMF does kinda show what I'm talking about. http://www.helpmefind.com/rose...

Big help! Thank, Mike and Toni! I plan to get 4 roses and put 2 on each side. May get 2 varieties so as not to put all my eggs in one basket, so to speak.
Too bad there isn't a climber that is in constant bloom??? Somewhere I saw that Ramblin Red was???

I made the mistake of putting climbers on arbors that get too big and over-power the structure a few times. Guess it depends on how big the arbor is. My arbors are very small and only 8' tall and about 16" wide...not "big" by any means.

Dream Weaver gets enormous. If you have a really big arbor, it's perfect. Great color and blooms non stop from April through January. I had to remove the tiny arbor it WAS on and create a hodge-podge support for it. (Live and learn !)

Mike, I really appreciate that information!!! Very important thing for me to keep in mind. THANKS!

I've seen that Theresa Bugnet and it's really really nice.
Rose Marie Viaud looks very similar to Excellenz Von Schubert (to me, anyway...) .

It's such a challenge to find a rose that will "work" where you want it, isn't it ?
I'm experimenting with growing climbers on arbors combined with other blooming vine-like plants. That way, if the rose isn't a constant bloomer, the other plant usually has some flowers on it and when they both bloom at the same time it's very cool. Common old ivy geraniums work well for me when combined with smaller climbers. Just weave them up through the arbor instead of letting them sprawl on the ground.

Below is a plain old orange ivy geranium combined with cl. white iceberg. The rose is dwindling down for the season, but a month ago the two looked good together. This is a shady spot most of the year and Iceberg seems to tolerate less than full sunlight.

Mike, that is really a gorgeous scene! What is the red rose?

Red Cascade bloomed constantly for me this summer although we have had extreme drought, however mine is more of a ground- cover than a climber, my fault, no doubt.

Not a rose, Janice...it's an ivy geranium. Very easy to do and they grow super fast.
Try it ! Colette has a deep purple one growing up inside of it. Gives the same effect as a clematis, which are difficult for me to "do" here.

Porkpal: Try taking the shoots of your ground cover rose and train them UP on some sort of trellis or arbor. It works. I did it with a Fuchsia Meidiland ground cover rose. I'll see if I can find a picture of it. Do it while the long shoots are still pliable.

Janice, there is no red rose in that last shot, that's the ivy geranium he was talking about with Iceberg. And what a great idea Mike! I think I will try that myself!

Ah, spoke too soon! Hi Mike!

Hi Sue !
Nothing could be easier than combining the two. I did a similar one for one of my sisters using pink geraniums and cl. Iceberg. She's NOT a gardener at all, but Iceberg is a super easy rose and the geraniums are a no brainer.

I'm experimenting with the sky blue plumbago going up through a cl. Polka rose. That combination may prove to be "over the top" but we'll see. Plumbago here will do well in the partial shade created by the rose and it's evergreen. I hate the barren look of climbers in the winter...but that's just me. Cl. Polka can be stingy with rebloom depending on the weather. I get desperate for Clematis substitutes that will perform here in the summer heat.

What kind of plumbago are you growing that gets that big? The ones here only get to be about 18". I love plumbagos...

18"?? They plant them here along the freeways and they are 10 ft+ big monsters!

I have a yellow salvia madrensis planted next to a small sky blue plumbago that I hope will grow to the same size. Right now the salvia is about 5 ft tall and the plumbago is about 1 ft tall but both are in full bloom and I love that blue and yellow color combo. I have Westerland planted behind the salvia, lots of colors going on here! Still have to see if the salvia will withstand the frost here so I will be taking cutting just in case. Actually I'll just dig out the new shoots I just noticed, looks like this things wants to be a big spreader.

Are we thinking the same thing??? This is what we have here. http://www.coopext.colostate.e... And which salvia are you growing that's yellow? And you have frost???

No not the same, yours is Ceratostigma plumbaginoides, aka Hardy Plumbago, that's the one that goes dormant, a ground cover. Not sure what cultivar I have but it's Plumbago auriculata, it looks like this:


Yes, we do get a bit of frost, not much, more here than where I used to live but we also have the ocean influence so it's not too bad most years.
This is the salvia I am growing http://www.anniesannuals.com/p... and I now see it can go to lower zones so I should be OK on it.
I'll have to take a full size plant shot of it. Forsythia Sage (Salvia madrensis)

That is a different Plumbago than I have. Mine does not get more than about 3' tall here because it gets frozen back in winter. However my mother grew the same plant in Bermuda and it got huge.


I think it would look nice with my favorite "weed" whose name I have forgotten.


(Sorry - rather fuzzy photos.)

Very nice, Mike! Ivy geranium...hmmm..... Should give that a try for sure! Thank you