Think of the various bushes that are made against a house - branch and
cover - think of the arch as a horizontal plane and run the cane as
young as possible - keep it moving in the right direction.

We are doing the same with a Lady Banks over a bench arch. Birds love the arch.
The seat is useless. Useful for plants in pots.

Martin

donzie wrote:
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?