I would certainly contact the utility company first. If they have to make a special call to remove your plant, they will likely send you a hefty bill for it. Also, the preservative they use, and I assume they still use coal tar creosote, is extremely toxic and a known carcinogen. I wouldn't dig in the dirt anywhere near the pole as you will likely inhale particulates.

If you need to block your view of the pole, perhaps something tall nearby, but not too close to it.

I am not familiar with those two roses, but I am presuming you want the rose to climb up the telephone pole? Telephone poles, at least the ones in our neighborhood, have to be climbed by linemen occasionally. Obviously a large climbing rose on the pole would make that impossible, and my presumption is that they would cut the rose down immediately (and perhaps send you a bill, or even a fine) so that they could do their work.

Having said that, I planted a bush (NOT a climber!) near the base of a telephone pole in front of our house. It gets maybe 3 feet high. One day I did see a telephone guy climbing that pole, and he was very careful not to hurt the rose - I was very impressed.

So, I would not every recommend trying to grow a rose up a telephone pole.

Jackie

I figure the day may come where they chop at the rose. Although, in my area, they don't climb the poles anymore; they go up in a cherry picker. Have people actually ever been fined or is that just hypothetical? I've never heard of that happening. I see the power company trimming people's trees that tangle with the power lines all the time, and they don't get fined.

Here they put herbicide around the base of the poles.

It depends on the policies of the utility companies in your area. Here, if you violate any utility company policy or "damage" any utility property (they make their own definitions of damage), be it Entergy or New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board, they will at some point correct it and will rarely notify you of the action. What you get is a big bill sent to you out of the blue. We have problems with utility monopolies and southern politics, so our utility companies are rampantly abusive. It just depends on where you live. I would definitely ask first.

Hmm, maybe you guys are right and this is asking for trouble. There's also the added problem of getting water to the rose that's so far away from the house. I would ask, but I have a feeling they will tell me I will be fined or the rose removed just to deter me, whether that would really happen or not.

I did it but after seeing the poor guys trying to work around it, I moved the rose to another spot. Later on, they put some wicked preservative in the soil surrounding the pole.

The first rose I saw on a telephone pole was Chevy Chase in full bloom. It was spectacular. So much so that I stopped to ask the owner whose house was just back of the pole what it was. To add further interest, he had the same rose trained up the side of his house and along an area between the first and second floor all along that side. Both examples were truly car stopping for me. What in introduction to a rose. I asked for cuttings and came back later for some. I think he used heavy wire to hold it up and twisted the canes arounf the pole to increase their likelihood to bloom from the laterals - most likely pruned the blooming laterals one or more years to 2-3 eyes to get additional bloom in subsequent years. I think the upright somewhat stiff nature of Chevy Chase worked well in this case. I am uncertain about Francois or other wichuriana climbers - perhaps they would twine more easily. My Francois covered 70 feet of fence (35' in opposite directions) in its glory.