Question
I have 2 old climbing roses on an arbor.  The wind snapped the support post of my arbor and I need to take it down and replace them.  I will have to do some heavy pruning to get the roses off the arbor.  Will they be able to survive this, and how far can I cut them?  Thanks....

Answer
As I don't know where you garden, the pruning is governed by how cold a winter you get. If you can wrap the old climbers and then rope them, it sometimes makes it easier to control them. If that is impossible, then I would try and save the new canes. These will be the green ones as the older ones are grey. if there are three or more green ones coming from the base, then you are in luck as you can then cut down to the base the old canes. Finally you can cut these green ones back to about 6 feet. If you aren't lucky then try not to go below 5 feet. The reason for this is that is the climbers are a sport of a bush rose, then severe pruning can make them sport back to growing as a bush. It really all depends on your winter as this is not the time to prune if you get a very cold one.