I don't know much about training, but I have a 3 yr old ownroot Polka, and it's about 8ft tall and really likes to spread as well...at least 6ft in every direction if you let it. I'm training it around a pillar. Last year it was a giant monster whipping its long canes everywhere until I tied up the longest ones and cut back hard on the canes that weren't long enough for me to pillar or just growing in the wrong direction. The canes are very thick, about an inch in diameter, and they are very stiff & difficult for me to train circularly around a pillar, but you might have an easier time training yours horizontally. If I understand you correctly, I think it will be hard to bend the thick canes and double back in a zig zag formation. You'd probably have to prune the basal where you want it to stop, then train the long lateral back in the other direction where the basal came from, I'm guessing. Maybe someone with more experience will chime in. You can make tall laterals horizontal if you want, yes, they will bloom at the tips if you leave it. At least, that's what mine does. This year, after tying my canes, the basals and long laterals from the last couple years are producing lots more laterals all along the canes. At this point I'm not sure how long these will get, but they currently range about 6-10 inches. I'm hoping these will all bloom. I haven't yet seen a big flush from mine, but I think that's due to my newness at training and the rose focusing more on growing long canes to get to mature size.

I have another that I haven't started training yet since I plan to move it but just haven't decided on a new spot yet. It's 2yrs old, 4ft tall and 5ft wide. It looks a bit like those bonsai style shrubs/trees right now, and I'm kind of liking the look of it.

Yikes. I can bend them enough to make them go back and forth ... your laterals are 6-10" which is what I thought laterals should be .. my one is 47"!! Maybe I should train it horizontal & hope to get 10" laterals from it! You said "the basals and long laterals from the last couple years are producing lots more laterals all along the canes." Were these long laterals horizontal?

I could bite the bullet and replace it with a smaller growing rose. I think I'll let it be for winter & see what happens in spring. Thanks

Well, this year's laterals are 6-10 inches at the moment. They all look rather compact (the nodes), so I'm thinking some will probably elongate more as the weather heats up. Last year, and the year before, I had 4ft-6ft laterals grow from the thickest basals. The thinner basals produced laterals about 2-4ft. Once I started wrapping the longest canes, those stems started producing more shorter laterals. I think it has to do with the amount of laterals it's producing all at the same time. Thinking back, when I didn't tie the cane, it only produced a few but very long laterals. When I tied them at a 45 degree angle, it started producing lots more laterals, so it had less energy to put into each one, so they were shorter.

I think I’ll tie the long lateral back to about 45 degrees, see what happens

thanks

Yes, you can make the long laterals into horizontals. I've done this with roses. Some put out very long laterals. You may find over time that keeping too many long laterals makes the rose a bit to wild looking so you can remove some. Any rose cane trained horizontally will put out blooms on each leaf bud.