I have ordered MAC for delivery this winter, with the intention of sending her up a japanese maple tree in my front yard. The tree is maybe 5 metres tall (17 feet) growing in an open vase shape. It branches into another tree, but that tree is more densely folia Ted than the maple, so I don't know if MAC would like to wander over there. I was thinking that perhaps root competition with the maple might have an impact on her size. Perhaps I am kidding myself?

I will attach a pic of the maple and it's neighbour. It's not as tall as it appears in the pic, and the house is downhill from the tree, and there's all that foreshortening and what-have-you to contend with in pictures...

My MACs are all around 10 years old. The bottom 6' or more on all is just bare canes and trunk while the canopies are fairly dense and full. This seems to be typical of MAC. I do love the flowers and the scent and often pluck a bloom or two for a little vase on my desk. The petals have a mesmerizing texture, I think.

Here's MAC on the trellis (which is 8' tall, about 8' wide and 6' deep:

Anne

It grew in complete darkness for months before reaching the light. I will post another pic of this same rose showing how high it gets - in that dense fir tree.

Long story short, this rose will grow in partial shade, into any sort of tree it can reach. Ours are healthy, never get sprayed or pruned. I am sure if you try to train it you can make it behave nicely as catspas' does. Ours boom 11 months of the year.

Jackie

Jackie

Even this year after I had to cut her to the ground with no surviving cane whatsoever, she's already around 4 feet tall and ready to eat Cleveland if the opportunity arises. She's a fast grower once established even with pruning, so for heaven's sake don't plant her in a restricted space. I say once established, since for around 4 years she was unnoticed at the back of my beds putting down roots and plotting her world domination. She's well armed too, so I'm not sure I have the advantage in this fight.

Needless to say, she's also gorgeous and well worth the planting. The jaw-droppingly beautiful photos from catspa and Jackie are testament to this.

Cynthia

I do NOT miss bleeding, the pain, the chronic mildew (even though Annie Laurie McDowell nor either of the Sally Holmes on the connecting wall ever suffered mildew), nor the near total lack of bloom experienced by having to keep her from eating the block. If you have an "endless summer climate" with either huge spaces and large trees for her to eat (such as at Jackie's house), or a cathedral you would just love to slip cover with sharp armament and fragrance, go for her. Otherwise, forwarned is forearmed. Kim

Secondly, I would love to see this maple smothered in MAC, or any other rose for that matter. I'm not fond of looking at it at all, but the native birds love to nibble on its little seed pods, so it stays.

Thirdly, I have a couple of other spots where I could plant MAC if you don't think this would work. For instance, I have a huge water tank in part shade (you can just see it on the left of my first pics, it's sage green) that she could eat up, and then make her way up the east side of my house. She could eat my garage (also part shade), or she could wind her way through the trees over my back fence (20 metres wide, or 65 feet, in full sun).

But if I don't put her in the maple... What should I put in the maple!? Perhaps Aimee Vibert?

But I am a little afraid I would have to prune her....

I do know someone who prunes hard and frequently who keeps MAC the size of a large shrub, but I shake my head in wonder every time I see it. A normal MAC produces 20 foot canes on a regular basis.

Personally, I would be dubious about the continued health of the maple you are considering as a support.

I suspect Kim may be right, that MAC will continue to grow endlessly larger as long as adequate resources are available to support its growth.

Have we scared you off yet?

Rosefolly

Rosefolly, that is a very good point about the maple losing the fight with MAC. I would rather it didn't fall on the house. I will choose another spot for her. I think she can have a crack at the water tank.

So now, I guess the question is, what should I send up the maple?

Some possible options - from the bunch I have ordered for this winter:

Aimee Vibert
Zephirine Drouhin or Kathleen Harrop
Cl. Lorraine Lee (a gigantea hybrid, so perhaps not...)
Sophie's Perpetual
Pax
Cl. SDLM
Heritage (apparently will climb)
Abe Darby (apparently will climb)

Or I could get something else. I was hoping for a rose there, but i suppose if there's nothing suitable a clematis will do.

My hope is that the rose will become self supporting before the dead tree completely disintegrates. I cut the canes as they arch down from the tree. Catspa's picture is the first I've seen that made me think that maybe this will work after all. Thanks for all the pictures, everyone! Gean

For the maple tree, I think Pax (the hybrid musk) would be a good idea. Its growth is moderate and open, it does climb, and the blooms and particularly the large older buds are gorgeous.

Jackie

P.S. I second Melissa's suggestion that you root a cutting of MAC if you would like one on its own roots. All of mine are on their own roots.

I will eventually try to take some cuttings from her, when she is big enough. Although I am notoriously bad at rooting cuttings of any sort.

There's a big strip of 'no mans land' that runs along my east fence. The council doesn't maintain it, so it's overgrown with weeds and invasive species. I plan to plant a lot of big old ramblers there (I've already put in a few Lady Banks) and I think MAC would be right at home there too, if I can root some cuttings.

Honeysuckle (japanese) is a horribly invasive noxious weed here. I'm sure European honeysuckle would probably be OK, but it's very difficult to source because of the "honeysuckle is invasive" mindset - many nurseries just won't stock honeysuckle, full stop.

I did find a clematis specialist who has lonicera serotina available through mail order - have you smelled that one? I bought lonicera x heckrottii 'Firecracker' last year but it's not very fragrant. And what's the point of honeysuckle if it's not fragrant? I don't want to go down that road again yet again. Still, I will most likely order one next year when I buy some clematis from them. (But I have other plans for that one.... Did I hear you say 'honeysuckle hedge'? Mwahahaha).

Truthfully, I'm pretty excited about putting Pax under the maple. Hope it works out!

Jackie

I'm rather embarrassed to post a photo of what will be my 'rose arbour' because my husband insists that it is, without doubt, the ugliest thing he's ever seen. I keep telling him that in a couple of years it will be smothered in wonderfully fragrant white roses but he's very doubtful.

Is anyone prepared to hazard a guess as to how long it will take for my 4 MACs to create my longed-for 'rose arbour'??? Each rose is planted in the middle of a 2.5 metre (8 foot) span.

Cheers
Tricia

Tricia, that arbour looks awesome! I can just imagine it brimming with roses! Your husband is crazy :) He will be eating his words in a few years!

I'm rather embarrassed to post a photo of what will be my 'rose arbour' because my husband insists that it is, without doubt, the ugliest thing he's ever seen. I keep telling him that in a couple of years it will be smothered in wonderfully fragrant white roses but he's very doubtful.

Is anyone prepared to hazard a guess as to how long it will take for my 4 MACs to create my longed-for 'rose arbour'??? Each rose is planted in the middle of a 2.5 metre (8 foot) span.

Cheers
Tricia

Muscovyduckling - don't give up on Pax. As I said above, mine got up to 15 feet high. It IS a climber.

Jackie

My husband was also doubtful about my MAC on the pergola. It was just a tiny band from The Uncommon Rose when I planted it and he made some snide comment about "high hopes" or "great expectations" or such. He's eating those words now!

It is interesting to note, by the way, that the MAC from The Uncommon Rose has pinker blooms than my other two MACs, one of which came from Vintage and the other from a now defunct nursery in the same town as Vintage -- whether this is due to different conditions (front yard versus back yard) or a peculiarity of that clone, I don't know.

My MAC is growing huge trunks inside of my plum and all the leaves and flowers are up above it along the eaves. The little pale petals fall continuously. It grew slowly in shade the first year and now spreads like a monster while the bare trunks below get ever fatter. That plum could be removed and the rose would still be supporting itself. You don't really need a tree, just put up some heavy poles or a teepee and a few years later the rose is its own tree.

Yes, all four of mine are own root, bought last year in 2.5 litre pots and planted at the end of November. Perhaps I'm going about this the wrong way, but whenever one of the plants puts out a new basal shoot I'm tying it down to the wire mesh as close as possible to ground level so that I will end up with all the wire mesh hidden and the roses will literally be flowering 'from the ground up'. As I've never done this before it's quite possible that I'm wrong?

Interesting that one of your MACs is more pink than the others - mine come from a supplier here in Italy but there's a decidedly pink tinge (especially in today's heat) - to all four of mine. This photo was taken half an hour ago - the temperature is around 32 degrees at the moment and the roses are in full sun all day long - I hope they don't all crisp up when summer arrives in earnest.

Tricia

Your structure, at least, allows light from the back -- is it a southern exposure on that side? Of the tea-noisettes I have, MAC and Jaune Desprez are the most relentlessly vertical in nature; canes trained horizontally put up numerous strong, vertical canes that solidity into stiff uprights if left too long. With the trellis and to some extent on the pergola, I pull these long verticals downward and train them horizontally (thus creating more verticals -- it's endless!); the ones in the pepper tree just go up and further up. (Reve d'Or and Crepuscule have been the most accommodating to horizontal training and keeping lower foliage, thus far.)

I have seen MACs heavily pruned and trained as free-standing shrubs that were not so bare-legged.

I think heat definitely makes MAC's blooms pinker -- even the MACs that are pale in spring show a pinkish tinge during summer (as does Jaune Desprez, who is more pink than yellow most of the summer here). That said, the MAC on the pergola is consistently more pink than the others, even in the spring, much like in your photo.

I would rate MAC as my most heat-tolerant rose, one of the extremely few that do not crisp at all when temperatures are over 100 degrees F (38 C), looking amazingly fresh, even, in those conditions. As well as being light-colored, the petals have good substance.

I think established plants of MAC are nearly bullet-proof. Your shelter is going to be beautiful, I think!

The orientation of the rose arbour is almost exactly North/South, so the roses are in full sun from sunrise (5:30am at the moment) until sunset (8:45pm now).

We're in the country and the structure is on the edge of our parking area (which you can see from the photo below). It will provide some much-needed shade in Summer (eventually) for our small cars. However, much more importantly, it will be a beautiful sight to behold when I open the front door and see the rose arbour adorned with all the blooms of MAC instead of the remains of whatever crop my neighbour (a farmer) has decided to grow each year - only once has he planted sunflowers - they were wonderful while they lasted which wasn't long!

I'll post more photos as the roses grow, however, I believe that with the heat we're having now the growth rate will slow down quite a lot.

Cheers
Tricia

And thank you, Summerseve, for your info on how large she grows in your zone (6a), which is not so very different, I suppose, from mine (6b).

Tricia, it would be greatly appreciated if you would post photos of your arbor and Mme Alfred Carriere's progress each summer. I look forward to seeing how she grows!

Attached is a photo of my MAC taken today. If you compare it to the one I posted on the 8th June (which was taken on the 8th June) you can see how much the roses have grown in just four months.

Our Summer was very unusual this year - we normally have really torrid weather with no rain from mid-June until the end of August, however, this year it wasn't particularly hot and it seemed to rain at least once a week. I'm sure that this accounts for all the growth - not only MAC but all my roses are enormous (however, I've had to spray constantly because of black spot - although MAC was one of the least affected by it and its foliage is quite clean at the moment).

Hope this answers your question.

Cheers
Tricia

I ended up planting MAC next to the water tank, and she hasn't done much there yet as she'll be in a bit of shade until she can get to about 3' tall. I had decided to put one of the HMs with the maple, but when it came time to actually dig the hole, I discovered that there was no way in the world I could get my spade through those maple roots! So I planted nothing there after all.

Still. I'm glad we had this chat about MAC. I can't wait to see a bloom or two!

She keeps trying (and succeeding) to push her canes through the bamboo on the roof (that we put on this year to get some protection for the cars from the sun). However, I keep pulling them back down and tying them horizontally.

I don't know how I'll ever manage to prune her because every cane that I tie horizontally immediately sprouts along its length with more canes that I tie horizontally etc. and so it goes. We've had a very mild autumn until now but, from tomorrow, our temperatures will plummet to lows of around 4 and highs of 14 (roughly 40F to 55F) - not cold but a real shock after the glorious sunny mid-20s we've been having until today.

Cheers
Tricia