Question
Hello!  I live in Columbus, Ohio (I think that's Zone 7 but am not sure) and I was wondering if you could help me with my Joseph's coat.  I understand that it's a climber and I have it planted right next to a large trellace but currently it is not climbing.  I'm not sure what I have to do to get it to climb.  Needless to say I'm very new to the rose game (less than one year).

Answer
Usually a climbing rose is a rose that grows to 9 feet plus. However catalogues lie a lot and Josephs Coat is one of their biggest ones. This is a very large shrub that will only grow to about 7 feet. But in California it does grow to 10 feet so that lets them out of the lie. If you want it to grow taller, don't prune it at all and feed it well monthly with something like Miracle Gro, and give it 5 gallons of water every five days. 5 Gallons is a bucket of water. Roses like to have a large gulp of water not a lot of little sips daily. They also love cool roots so use anything that will make a mulch and put it all around the base of the climber. Oh yes, and don't gorget to take the dead flowers off or the rose will not make any more flowers. One of the problems with this rose is that it tends to die back in the winter, thus making it even shorter. To get it rhough even a nasty winter, stop all fertilizing at the end of July and then the rose will have time to harden off it's canes for the winter, even the ones that it grows in August. Hope this helps. Lynnette