We need pictures!

Wow! It's hard for me to imagine anything that size. With our winters nothing ever gets that big.

Until Melissa has the opportunity to post them, take a look at both La Mortola and Montecito photos on Help Me Find. There are some good illustrations of its vigor there. Some, over the years, have suggested Montecito may be La Mortola. It's sufficiently similar to provide the idea of what she's describing. It sounds magnificent, Melissa! Kim

Here in Zone 8 the larger growing kinds of musk roses in particular grow triple that size. Coldest winters do kill them back, however - like many roses these seem to be hardy to about 10F. or so, dying away (but often coming back from the roots later) if we fall below the double digits.

For the larger varieties you need a big support to house their tree-sized tops. The original 'Kiftsgate' was 100 ft. across at one point.

I've grown 'Paul's Himalayan Musk' a couple times but always end up getting tired of the downy mildew it gets, taking it out. If somebody wants a somewhat more bushy than others, long-blooming one that is usually clean "Darlow's Enigma" has been successful in my area (and elsewhere to at least some extent, based on online discussion). It resembles the one being traded as 'Nastarana' but produces yellowish green foliage instead of bluish, yellow buds instead of pink, does not get black spot and is not tender. It does produce prickles that are like fish hooks.

Huge roses are my favorite. Can't wait to see PICTURES of yours when it is blooming in the Spring.

I must admit that I have a bad habit of encouraging my roses to get as large as they can - while others are pruning and shaping a certain rose into an ideal size/configuration, I am celebrating that it has put up long gangly canes that will CLIMB! My Sombreuil (Colonial White) has reached the roof of our 3 story house - I will post pictures when it blooms next Spring. Makes me happy, although I realize that it is NOT what I am supposed to be doing with that rose.

Jackie

Today I spent a little time tucking some long canes of 'Orfeo' into the scalped Callery pear tree which its climbing. There were four or five that were at least fifteen feet long -- and while only moderately thorny, those it has are like fish hooks. So that I didn't have to break out the ladder, I used a four-prong long-handled cultivator (looks like a claw) for most of the tucking, but there were times I had to put my hands directly onto the canes -- making sure to gently grasp between the thorns. After a few readjustments, I think I've gotten it the way I want, but I'll be able to see the rose better when the tree finally drops its leaves (and I'll take some pics). And I wonder how many new canes will come up in a few months, which will be its third Spring since coming as a band.

:-)

~Christopher

Christopher - I am looking forward to seeing a picture on here if your Orfeo in the tree next Spring. Maybe you could take one of the entire height of it when it is blooming and post it on HMF - almost all of the pics of Orfeo on there are close ups of blooms only - not very helpful for a climbing rose!

Jackie

I'll try, but it'll be tough. I've been working the rose into the tree in such a way that it's barely visible amongst the tree's leaves. My vision for it when it's mature is that it will give the illusion that red roses are sprouting in the tree -- along with the blooms of Clematis 'H. F. Young' and 'Henryi', which are using 'Orfeo' as their trellis into the tree. Anything over 6' will be hard to see in pictures.

If you're wondering about habit, it's grown several canes that look like long HT canes -- but stretching over twice my height (I'm 5'11"). They're somewhat flexible in their first year, turning stiff in their second. They remind me of the canes on my 'Bleu Magenta'. I have some wrapping around the trunk, and a couple going straight up and then weaved into the tree's branches. Maybe I'll remove some of the tree's new lower branches in Spring so the rose is more visible, but it seems to be getting plenty of sun. I'm hoping that laterals will sprout and arch further out next year.

I know most people put Ramblers in trees rather than Large-Flowered Climbers, but I wanted something that didn't get so bushy at the base -- it's a bit of a tight spot between the tree and the deck railing where 'Nouveau Monde' is growing on it in the middle, and 'Georg Arends' in the corner. The pic linked below on HelpMeFind shows my 'Nouveau Monde' and a little bit of 'Orfeo' on the tree trunk from this Spring, to give an idea of the spacing. Both have since more than doubled in size. And that reminds me -- I'll have a lot of training to do on 'Nouveau Monde' before Rose Season begins....

:-)

~Christopher

Here is a link that might be useful: my pic of 'Nouveau Monde' on HelpMeFind

I found a pic from June. If you look carefully, you'll see the red new leaves on a cane at 12:00 on the trunk -- that cane is about 15' long now. Same for the canes with the red new leaves just below the red bloom to the immediate left of the tree trunk. The cane on the right side of the trunk wraps around and up on the other side. And since this pic was taken, a few other canes grew from the base as well. Alas, only five or six blooms showed their faces this year, but those were on canes from last year. So next year I'm expecting to see a few on this year's canes, as well as more on last year's canes.

:-)

~Christopher

{{gwi:320652}}

Those (deluded) types who claim size does not matter are....lying! It certainly does to this gigantic rose admirer. Of course, shoe-horning these giants into an allotment plot has led to bitter disputes from savaged neighbours...but having virgin acreage has sparked the search for giants all over again. True, musk roses can be slightly iffy in exposed east Anglia...but, at last, I can truly indulge myself with monster shrubs/trees along the lines of Cedric Morris, Wedding Day, the Garland,.Manning's Blush..and, of course, those huge rambling enormo-roses such as the creeping ayreshires, soulieana, mulliganii, sinowilsonii and more of my favourites, the moyesii family. And I am doing - having ordered another tranche of massive shrubs - the smallest growing to only a measly 3metres.
Moreover, this means an end to the tedium of deadheading since I have zero intention of adding remontancy into the mix because I want heps and thorns of huge size for families of wrens and long-tailed tits. No more brutal pruning or even attempts at tying in - I am letting them free to flail around like green barbed wire - the bigger, the fiercer, the better!

I have had a salutary few days attempting to wrestle a few of these allotment roses out of the ground - stand up, the vicious Darlow's Enigma and Pleine de Grace - Aimee Vibert was a gentle swatting instead of the bloody mauling I got from a couple of the others. So much so that I have given up on the original plan of transplanting several dozen roses into the woodland....and am now simply leaving them for some unlucky plotter while I order anew. Saving a handful of cash while losing pints of blood and strips of flesh seemed like a poor exchange (and my beloved down filled body-warmer is puffing feathers from a million puncture holes) so rather than even attempt to move a 10 year old moyesii or strangling setigera, I will just start again.

So, while I am never going to manage huge teas, my poplar woods can happily accommodate some whopping great roses....and I have barely got started on rubus!!

Wonderful to hear about these big beauties. Here in so CA suburbia everything gets whacked down to size constantly. I always get the ' when are you going to trim that? ' look from dad and neighbors. My own adventure will be my MAC going along the eaves. I'm finally selling the arbor by the door to make room for positioning the big ladder I'm going to certainly need.

Hearing about the progress of these large scale gardens is always a pleasure. The birds are going to thank you everyday for these gifts.

Campanula - sounds heavenly! Thank you! I sometimes get intimidated by the folks who prune every rose exactly so that it looks gorgeous all of the time (but not intimidated enough to do that to mine). Nice to hear that there is someone else who thinks that bigger is better!

Your woods will be so wonderful - even in my garden, which is 3 1/2 blocks from the main downtown street of our town, my big roses are full of bird and squirrel nests.

Also as you said, once a rose gets taller than 15 feet, no more feeling guilty because it does not get deadheaded. Somehow they manage to keep blooming anyway!

Jackie