Don't get too hung up on the aching thing. It's true you'll get better
lateral production if the main cane is not vertical, but its not necessary
to have the cane horizontal to achieve lateral production. I just try to
induce a bit of a bend, and it seems to work out fine. I even have pretty
good bloom production on the canes I leave vertical. That's why people can
have their climbers to cover the side of their house and still produce
blooms.

As far as training the laterals, you can do that after they have produced
blooms. Dead head them, and then treat them as canes, off of which new
laterals can be produced.

Jeff, Southeast Michigan, Zone 5


"donzie" wrote in message
...

donzie;848788 Wrote:
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.

Can anyone help me with this please?




--
donzie