It needs be pruned (If you're going to prune it) in the spring, after its flush of bloom, then LEAVE IT ALONE. The growth it puts on after that pruning will bloom the following spring.

'Fortuniana' is not suitable for use as a container plant.

It is a VERY BIG PLANT, which needs to be in the ground where it can grow roots of equal size. I think it is likely that, kept in a container, it might not bloom at all.

Mine starts at the bottom corner of our hillside garden, and climbs a derelict fence almost all the way up. In our conditions, we don't get the massive bloom you would get inland, but it does scatter bloom right through the year.

I'm asking seriously, because this rose really is meant to be big. My idea of "manageable size" is that it stays reasonably near the fence it is hiding.

The thing is, the more you cut off, the less bloom you will see. And if you are going to cut it back radically, do so in the late spring/early summer, so that it can grow canes on which to bloom.

The climate there is mild enough that it repeats in the Fall in that place. I hope to visit it later in the year, and see what it's doing.

It grows as a thicket in the pittosporum and other over grown hedge plants between two neighbors. The one across the street has the gardeners trim up the draping canes to allow cars or his work bench under them. It is quite a sight in the spring.

Kim -- In essence, that's what they did with the one I mentioned, now sheared to a huge round ball. If I had a photo of it, I'd send it to Billy Goodnik, for his "crimes against" list.

When we saw it in mid-May, it had 1-2 blooms peeking out.