I've never seen it bloom, though I have a picture(from the realtor)that shows it blooming (pretty sad, really). The flowers are either dark pink or pinkish red.

I have no idea what kind of rose it is or what on earth I should do with it now that it's mine. I'd kind of like it a little more tame and bushy, rather than 15 feet tall and lanky.

Rose people - I need your help!

Jackie

Butterfly's advice for waiting until spring is good for doing a major pruning and re-shaping but you can cut out dead wood anytime. Dead wood, crossed or rubbing canes and any damaged canes should be taken out sooner rather than later because all of those situations provide opportunities for diseases to get in. And use the glue. I don't use regular Elmer's because it washed off in the rain for me but they make a good carpenter's wood glue that dries hard and that's what I use. If a cane is dead you want to cut it as flush to the graft (knobby part at the ground) as you can. That will also encourage the rose throw up new, younger, healthier growth. If you do it now in zone 7 you should still have plenty of time before first frost for new growth to harden off.

When you do prune it back in the spring you can also take out 1/3 of the very oldest, woodiest canes. Besides encouraging new canes (called basals) it will also give better air flow to the interior of the bush. You want to open up the center so that air will flow through and around the plant so the leaves and canes will dry quickly giving fungal diseases less opportunity to take hold. When you prune, whether now or in the spring, you want to cut about a 1/4 inch (and on an angle so water will drain off the cut) above an outward facing leaf node or bud eye. That's where the new growth will come from and will grow in the direction that the eye is pointing. So you don't want it to grow inward towards the center of the plant. You also want to remove any canes that are smaller than a pencil in diameter. Those small canes will be weaker and will not support a bloom when it opens so the rose will droop or "nod".

Once you do the initial re-shape and clean up it won't be so hard to keep it in good order after that. Do fertilize it with any balanced fertilizer starting in the early spring when it comes out of dormancy and begins to grow and then once a month through the season, stopping about 6 to 8 weeks before your first frost date. Roses like about an inch of water a week so if it's dry (like it's been here) you'll need to water it. They prefer less frequent but deeper watering to a little dribble everyday.

I hope all that helps and isn't confusing or overwhelming. If you have any questions please ask. We love to talk about roses!

If it's a climbing rose, how hard can I cut this baby back before I start killing branches? It's like 15 feet tall right now!

And will it bloom the same season after a hard pruning like that?

Oh, and if I cut it back pretty hard, will that make it a little bushier? Right now it looks like a tree and judging from the few rosehips present, I don't think it gets many flowers as it is.

Thanks so much for you help - I can always count on GW folks.

Also, if you really really don't like the flower, doesn't much matter--get rid of it.

I just posted a bunch of pictures in a picassa album (I don't think I can do that here) - There are a couple of the base, some leaf shots and one of the rose hips (huge!). The pics are from my cell phone, so not great, but maybe helpful.

I should also say that if you can gently stretch those canes as horizontal as possible without breaking them you will encourage what's called laterals and those will give you more blooms. Since most roses bloom on the ends of the canes if you encourage more side canes each of those will give you a bloom or spray of blooms. So maybe just cleaning out the dead wood and tying those canes to some kind of trellis would be a good way to go.

Do you think some kind of support behind it (against the house), say, a trellis, would help support horizontal growth?

Hopefully once you get the dead wood out and cut it back some it will bush out a little more and bloom better for you. But cutting it may also lose you some bloom next spring. It's hard to say not knowing what rose it is. But in the long run cutting it may be better for the plant. It will also give you younger more supple canes that will be easier to train to a trellis.

As for the base, like I said earlier, a lot of climbers are bare like that at the bottom. It has something to do with having to send up so much food and energy so high up to the top that it forfeits growth at the bottom. So your best bet is to plant something short in front of it to hide the bare legs. Maybe next spring you could add a nice complementary rose at the base? Maybe a lighter pink? (Enabling going on here, lol!)

Is there anyway you can post that photo of it in bloom that you have?

Tying with something easily removable gives you the option of changing the angle of horizantal as the cane lengthens. And it is easier to get to a too thin cane that would be best pruned out.

Be sure to leave some air space between the support and a wall.

As I have more plants than usable garden space, I try train plants as vertically as possible, even if I have to go horizontal to do it. That's why I love clematis and climbing roses more than the bushier types.

The guy who planted the rose moved here in 2007 - don't know if that matters or not. He planted quite a few interesting specimen plants, like the Jane Magnolia out front (also neglected now - he was doing poorly the last few years). Knowing what he gravitated towards, he would have wanted something unusual and possibly dramatic...

Can't wait to see what this big girl can do with just a little love!

Summer Wine puts on an awesome display of raspberry and gold large single flowers in early summer with some repeat blooming again in early fall. They are sweetly and mildly fragrant and the gentle but cheerful color is lovely.

If your rose is truly Summer Wine, cutting it back will let it renew itself but it will never be a small tame climber. I have had to cut mine back almost to the ground several times when winter winds took it over, and by June of the net year it is busy climbing high and handsome again!

I suggest that if this is not what you want, you let it grow for a year and get acquainted with it. You may find your ideas of "a rose garden" changing after making the acquaintance of this rose!

And yes, I would cut out the old dying stems now, and cut it way back in spring so it will bush out more, then stand back and watch it do its thing!

Found these photos I had taken of Summer Wine, not the best but they will give you an idea.

Lovely, Liza! And look at those shiny leaves!

Jackie

P.S. Hilarious coincidence - I ordered Altissimo years ago, and planted it. It looked and grew like Altissimo, but the flowers were a completely different color - turned out eventually that they had sent me Summer Wine instead! I don't know if it is related to Altissimo, but it certainly looks like it until you see the flowers.

A lady up the coast from us in La Conchita, right across Hwy 101 from the surf, had a magnificent Altissimo which went right up the front of her 2-story home. It was a traffic stopper. (The dear lady has left us. I hope her rose is still there.)

Jeri