Originally Posted by donzie

Hi,
I planted two roses called Times Past form Harkness a bout 2 years ago. Now I'm really new to a garden let alone roses but I'm really trying to learn and make a lovely garden. I'm trying to train the roses up over a rose arch and I have read all the books about training the main stems as horizontal as possible so that lateral shoots will form with the flowers. What I don't quite understand is that let's say on one of the plants there are two main stems and I'm training these in opposite directions around and up the side of the arch. But then one of the stems splits into 2 so not sure what I'm supposed to do then. Also I now have lots of lateral shoots that grow vertically from the main stem. Am I also supposed to train them in an horizontal fashion around the arch or just leave them to grow vertically? Some of these lateral stems look thicker than the main stems themselves.