I have never heard anyone praise climbing Peace, but I have seen many posts here disappointed at its stingy blooming. On the other hand, most climbing roses I know need 3 or more years--sometimes 4 or 5 years--to fully develop. In other words, a climbing rose can be a long-term commitment.

The non-climbing Peace has lots of BS problems, so I'm not surprised to hear that the climbing Peace does too.

Myself, I would avoid climbing Peace. There are other lovely climbers that bloom more quickly and fully than climbing Peace--and that don't need all that spraying. Check out Eden Climber, for instance.

Kate

If you canes are going straight up that's part of the trouble. The canes neet to be arched.

My Climbing Peace didnt bloom at all its first two years, very little the third and fourth but in the fifth year it covered itself in literally hundreds of enormous blooms. It does this every year in the spring with only scattered rebloom though. Be patient and feed it heavily, give it room and time and its one of the most spectacular climbers around

Climbing Sports of bush roses generally do not match the bloom production of the
original bush roses.
(Yes, that is a generalization.)
Cl. Peace grew here for 4 years before we finally figured out that it was never
going to be anything but a very big, green, mildewy, rusted plant. UGH.
I'm with Kate.
There are better Climbing roses to be had.
In Z8, you can grow anything from Large-Flowered Climbers to generous,
continuous-blooming Tea Noisettes.
Such as 'Reve 'd Or'

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Jeri

OK. You've waited this long, you're almost there!! At my old house my climbing Peace made blooms that were larger than a dollar bill (I took a picture w/ a dollar, just like fishermen do!)

The repeat is poor, yes, but the roses themselves are spectacular in the spring. Since you've come this far, train the new canes horizontally, or arch them before they get too stiff and feed and water and then see what happens next Spring.

YES - you should not prune in the spring as you do w/ most roses - this is the wood where you will get roses and unless the wood is dead you will be cutting off blooming wood. I think this is why many don't get blooms from climbing peace.

I agree that Climbing Peace is worth the effort. Several of the posts above have hit on the important basics: Patience, a warm climate, commitment to disease control, heavy feeding, & training the canes in a fashion that promotes the growth of the bloom-producing sideshoots.

It's true that after the spring flush very few blooms appear, but that spring flush can be spectacular! One other observation: Cl Peace is VERY responsive to an annual mulching with stable manure.

Climbing Peace gets a lot of bad raps, much of which it does not deserve. It is a bit of a misunderstood rose. Before you buy, grow and maintain climbing Peace, you need to ask the question, what do I want out of it. If you are asking for all summer long repeat, you will be thoroughly disappointed. If you want something you can tame and train, forget about climbing Peace. You you want a complete clean rose, don't bother.

(I will come out and say straight off that I love our Climbing Peace.)

If you grow climbing Peace, here is what you should be prepared for:

1. No blooms for the first 2 years, blooms in the spring only from year 3 to 5.
2. "Massive" spring flush from year 4-5 onwards, minimal mid season repeat (in fact, I will suggest not to expect any mid season flowers), then a few flowers at all times from August till frost.
3. It flowers from previous year's canes. You can't prune those - you absolutely must leave them alone - if you want a nice spring flush. I try and secure them in an arch to encourage laterals - it's these laterals that will give you flowers. Don't bother trying to train them any other ways - they are too thick and too stiff, and there are just too many of them.
4. I remove all the older canes (more than 2 years old usually) except the few really large ones that comes from the bud union. These, after 10 years have become almost like "tree trunks" - new canes arise from the top of these.
5. It's a heavy feeder - much more than any other rose. I give it a generous feed when the spring flush is over, to encourage new thick, long canes - these are next years show bearer.
6. It needs lot's of room - it's huge.

In a way, it behaves almost like a rambler, except for it's late season blooms and thick canes.

But our climber Peace's spring display is breath taking, and it remains one of my favourites in the garden. If you set your expectations to what this rose has to offer and it's limitations, you will love the rose. If not, you will learn to hate it. There is just no sitting on the fence on this one.

But I would like you to sit back and imagine one to two hundred of these 7 inch flowers, one a single rose, all at once:

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Thanks everyone. A lot to think about. It's on one of three matching trellises in my yard that are pretty prominent so the lack of bloom has been a bit of a drag. I've had no disease problems at all oddly. The Heirloom Roses Sale has been calling to me so I may check out what's on sale there.

Thanks again!
Kristina

I don't think I would attempt a climbing Peace rose in my current zone, but years ago when I was living in zones 10-11 (basically the San Francisco Bay area) we had an absolutely spectacular climbing Peace Rose bush. It was actually 2 bushes that we planted on either side of a big picture window and trained (not too difficult) to arch all the way up over the window toward the roof and meet in the middle. This was a truly amazing rose - scent-wise, bloom size wise (as big as a small plate) and color-wise (constantly changed colors as it opened from bud to full bloom), almost a kaleidoscope effect. It even had a few pretty hips as I recall in the winter before pruning. Yes it did not bloom the first 2 years at all, and not too much in the 3rd year, but we cane-pruned it (left long older canes that we trained) and year after year after that, left last years wood on it (trimmed it up a bit - cut laterals to no more, no less than 2 bud spurs on previous years canes). We got a profusion of blooms in early spring and the nice thing about it was although we didn't get an intense repeat bloom until almost fall - if we left the flowers on the bush they lasted a very long time. People would constantly stop when driving by and ask us what rose it was. More than once, people actually stopped and knocked on the door to ask us. So sometimes things come to those who wait, but correct pruning (and I suspect zone) is important. We always sprayed it with a dormant spray in the winter but were pretty lucky during the year with a simple systemic fertilizer and an occasional spray for black spot, but hey it was zone 10-11 afterall.

Our climbng peace rose has a spectacular display in early June. We have two and they are almost spread to the length of our fence, and maybe 10 feet in height. They are about 20 years old and there are hundreds of blooms