I think if you regularly give it a midsummer pruning at a bit shorter than the ideal height you desire that it may get the message after awhile. Pruning it back to your desired height might also sometimes stimulate the bush to put out more side branches lower down, thus giving it a fuller more bushy look.

Lovely rose in front of you house!

kate

You've discovered the one trait of 'Liebezauber' I did not like. I would take 4' off 'Liebezauber' every time I deadheaded, to keep it down to 8'.

In my climate, it was a cultivar that wanted to grow very, very tall, very, very fast. Probably a great trait in a climate where roses freeze to the ground every winter, but not here.

The canes were straight and strong, so arching it over and trying to make a climber out of it didn't seem viable. My solution was unfortunately the shovel.

Thank you - I'll just try to keep it pruned back and see what happens. Hopefully that will help.

Well you can try but you'll be fighting a losing battle. Liebeszauber is a hybrid tea and they do generally have that lanky type of growth pattern. Just be happy it's growing healthy and blooming!

Thanks Seil - I am very happy it is healthy and growing, I can live with the way it grows. Right now it is so much taller than the other roses in the same bed it looks a little out of place. I wouldn't get rid of a rose that is giving me beautiful blooms, which it does.

Sara--I myself prefer different heights for my various roses. It's kinda like a punctuation mark every so often. Just plant another somewhat taller rose a little further down the line and it will look like you are deliberately varying the heights for added interest. : )

Lovely house, by the way. I like older houses.

Kate

Edit: Oops! I confused your pics with those on the previous thread I was viewing. Sorry about that. Anyway, your red roses are handsome against that brick wall!

This post was edited by dublinbay on Fri, Dec 27, 13 at 19:46

Thank you Kate.

I've also seen a nice mass planting of Liebezauber where they were all pruned to about chest height, so I don't think you're doomed to the tall lanky look. Something I've noticed with roses that are planted up against a wall is that if there's no room to grow out, they grow up. So I wonder if you move it away from the wall just a bit if it might help.

That's a good point, ratdog. A rose that has more room to spread out is more likely to be encouraged to spread out. My neighbor around the corner has had 4 roses planted in about a 7-8 in. wide space next to the house with the driveway on the other side. I always wondered how those roses, literally squished up against the wall, got enough water and food to survive, but with time, I realized that she also had the tallest HTs I'd ever seen in this area--with little space available, they were encouraged to grow UP and UP.

Evidently from what the others say, you can't rid that rose of its tendency towards lankiness, but if it were planted --say, 2 ft-- from the wall, you might not be giving it encouragement to become even more lanky.

Just an idea.

Kate

This post was edited by dublinbay on Sat, Dec 28, 13 at 16:27

Thanks again. I think I'll just have to experiment.

Very good points and I didn't think of that but it makes perfect sense!