I cannot imagine 2m being high enough for any climbing rose - sweet peas maybe. There will be a lot of arching, flailing and general escaping from bounds....but then again, who wants to see roses trussed and confined

My advice is go taller than you think. I've found that the heights given for most roses are only estimates and do not take into consideration local climates. All of my climbers and Austin roses have exceeded their height estimates by several feet!

Thank you all! This is very helpful, both for now & in future.

Rosefolly, the truth is I've been thinking of growing it as a freestanding shrub, but wasn't sure it's possible. You've tipped the scales. A shrub it will be!

If you happen to have any pictures and if it's not too much trouble, I'd love to see them :)

I found if you don't arch the canes over on 'Pierre de Ronsard' it doesn't bloom much. Good luck with it. The Rust it got was terrible, and the beautiful flowers were always ruined by Thrips.

WinterCat, I don't have any good shots of the entire plant, but here goes. I should mention that a gopher ate the roots of my original plant and killed it. I rescued it in time to get three new starts that are coming along nicely, and I plan to grow the best of these in just the same fashion as the parent plant. Because of this, I can't just run outside and get you a better picture.

Okay, here is Pierre de Ronsard in full bloom.

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Now this is a shot of the bed in which it grows along the front of the house. It is the shrub at the end, quite round in form and with pink roses showing. Unfortunately it is partially blocked by a large Sarah Bernhardt peony, not in bloom, and the tips of some foxgloves, which are.

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And finally here is a shot of the same bed shortly after pruning. Leander is trained on a trellis, then the very tall rose is Glendora, then there is a Reine des Violettes you probably cannot see, and the shrub on the end is a 10 year old Pierre de Ronsard. I pruned it fairly hard, to about three-and-a-half to four feet tall.

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HoovB mentioned rust, which can be a problem in West Coast gardens. Most years in my garden PdR gets rust in the fall but not during the growing season. On really bad years it may get rust by midsummer.

Also, mine took several years to start blooming heavily and also repeating well, but it did indeed do that. The weight of the flowers seemed all by themselves to arch the canes.

Rosefolly

Wow, those are amazing photos, rosefolly! And that view!

I also grow Eden climber as shrub and only prune it harder - instead of training/bending the longer shoots on a trellis - fence/wall where it would get much taller. It is hard to train as pillar rose since the canes are not very flexible. As a shrub it seem to get about 5 feet tall in my climate/area- since I prune it to about 2-3 feet each spring. The ones I grow in my cutting garden are a bit taller and there bend the canes horisontally and tie them to wires.

Eden as 5 feet shrub rose:

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I did a blog post about Eden Rose some years ago -see link - there is also a picture of freestanding 8-10 feet tall Eden rose - in 5-6 years it should be able to get that big in Israel.

Here is a link that might be useful: Eden Rose

First I apologize for not replying earlier. In Israel the weekend starts on Friday, and I refuse to have a computer at home because I'm glued to one all week long (though sometimes it's a drawback, as in this case).

Thank you all very much for the tips and the additional info about the rose. Now I have a better idea what to expect.

The photos are wonderful. Rosefolly and cupshaped-roses - a big thank you for posting your photos online and for the link to the Pierre de Ronsard site (Rosefolly you seem have a lovely place with a great view).

What I like about this rose is that the foliage is so beautiful that the shrub is pleasing to the eye even when it doesn't bloom. My big problem with hybrid teas is that their only redeeming grace is the flowers, and considerable though it may be, it's intermittent.

And here's a poem for rose lovers in token of gratitude :)

http://www.online-literature.com/tennyson/725/

Yet another try to post a live link to the Tennyson:

Here is a link that might be useful: Tennyson

So many roses and poetry we miss if we are not pointed in the right direction :-) Thanks WinterCat.
The English website I gave links to in my blog post seems a bit unstable (serverproblems?) - sometimes it loads - sometimes it doesn't - but I do see a piture of this rose grown as tall pillar rose - so it can be done:

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I also like the beautiful reddish new growth of many modern roses - it looks so promising in the spring and in between flushes. Most years this rose has been very healthy for me - the leaves so healthy and shiny that they almost looks like "plastic" - but experience has shown me that - even if it has good resistance to powdery mildew and blackspot - It can get RUST in some years ... I have had some roses being totally clean for 4-6 years and suddenly they get rust and needs to be sprayed ... I find that rose rust is harder to control than the other fungal diseases - and I most often remove roses that needs more spraying than I am willing to do. Like most gardeners probably do.

Oh this is just gorgeous! Thanks!

I'm afraid I'm a ruthless sprayer, so the fungi are going to have a hard time with me.

This brings me back yet again to the reflection that a gardener is actually a great killer ... of plants (unwanted plants, of course, let alone pests).

Before I had a garden of my own this idea never occurred to me. I thought gardening was simply nurturing specific plants. I never perceived the other side of the coin, namely having to kill so many others so that my specific plants should flourish. I know better now :)

WinterCat, I love that poem! I've never had a teacher as talented as Eden to show me to beauty of poetry. I believe I'll go to the library today and check out a book of Tennyson's poetry.

I'm so glad you liked the poem. I like it though generally speaking I don't like Tennyson much.

Here's an eBook (Project Gutenberg) of Tennyson's Early Poems.

If you wish to skip the learned introduction just do Ctrl+F for searching the text & type TABLE OF CONTENTS. It'll get you right to the list of poems.

Here is a link that might be useful: Early Poems