Hello, Sandy, and welcome to the rose forum!

That does indeed look like a Red Meilland rose. It naturally has a low spreading habit and can get very wide. It may be a little bit too early to prune in your zone though. I'm in 6b and I don't prune until the beginning of April here. You are probably 2 or 3 weeks earlier than I am so I would wait until the beginning of March at least to prune it. An old rule of thumb is to prune when the forsythias bloom. Some people think that's an old wives tale though. I do use it as a general guide myself because to me it makes sense. The forsythia won't bloom until the soil reaches a certain temperature and there is sufficient daylight hours to trigger active growth.

It's not necessary to cut it down to 6 inches. Although if you did so it probably wouldn't kill. Roses are very tough and pretty fogiving of us humans! The first thing you want to do is take out any dead canes. To figure out if a cane is alive or dead take a snip off the end of the cane. If the center of the cane is white or creamy it's alive. If it's tan or brown it's dead. If it looks like dead wood keep clipping down the cane until you reach where the center of the cane is a clear white color. You want to clip about a 1/4 inch above the little nubs on the canes called bud eyes. Cut them at an angle so the water won't sit on the tops of the canes. Any canes that are bigger around than the size of a pencil should be sealed with something. They sell cane sealant but wood glue or nail polish will work. Any canes smaller than the size of a penicl can be removed. You can also take out some canes in the center to open up the bush for good air circulation. That helps keep diseases down because it allows the plant to dry quicker so spores can't take hold. The rule of thumb is to take only 1/3 to 1/2 of the number of canes out or off the length of a cane at any one time.

Like I said, Red Meilland is a sprawler by nature so it is going to want to send out the long canes. So during the season when you dead head the spent blooms you can also prune a little deeper to keep the plant in shape. Pruning usually stimulates new growth on a rose so pruning it should not hurt it. But you don't want to cut off all of the length or tie it all upright because each of those long canes, if left to arch naturally, will send up short canes called laterals and each of those laterals will bloom! So if you allow it to drape it will give you much more bloom than it would if the canes are kept upright.

The link below is RM's page on the Help Me Find . Com / Roses site. A really good place to find more information about your rose!

Most of all relax and enjoy your beautiful rose!

Here is a link that might be useful: HMF Red Meilland

Thanks Seil, I now feel I might be able to prune my little rose correctly, I was not awear of lateral growth and hadn't even thought about it but it does make sence. I might try and find the rose a location in my yard, but I do like it on the front porch in its pot also. I have 20 plus clematis that are anywhere between 3 years to 12 years old and I could prune them in my sleep. I will wait awhile yet before I prune the rose. I was looking at the rose yesterday afternoon and there aren't any dead canes at all on ther rose.. I live in middle Tenn and we haven't had much of a winter and the buds have already started swelling on the rose. My Clematis have also put out buds from the ground, but they are very hardy here down to 20 to 18 degrees I have found. Thanks Sandy