Anthony, post your questions in the main Roses Forum, you'll get more responses. This is the Rose Exhibitors forum.

I am in northern Illinois as well. Out of the David Austin roses I have, Teasing Georgia, Brother Cadfael, Graham Thomas, and Claire Austin can be considered climbers, but to be honest, none of them are cane hardy enough to become a reliable climber. The last winter was pretty brutal, and right now I don't have many green canes longer than 1 foot left on any of them.

Palytoxin/ so if want a climber that will Blume right away and not have to wait a few years I’m better off with an Austin. Should I just take them off the fence and protect the canes in the winter?

I was thinking of getting strawberrie hill, it looks like it is also grown as a climber.

Interesting, I'm seeing the thread in Rose Exhibiting.

If you want to go through the trouble of taking the canes off and bury them for winter, you won’t have to worry about winter dieback. It just sounds like too much work for me, LOL.

Anthony, what zone are you in? You can add that and your location next to your name. I'm reluctant to make suggestions otherwise. Also, how big can this rose get? Felix LeClerc has been recommended lately and looks beautiful. P.S. I am only seeing this in the Rose Exhibiting section.

I believe Sam in the organic Rose buries his Viking Queen covering it with leaves. In my very old Garden books they built trellises with hinges on the bottom. That way they just lowered the trellis and covered the whole thing with leaves. Of course, this isn't possible if one has roses at the foot of the climbers, but would be fairly easy to do with perennials or annuals there. I don't have any suggestions if you're growing it on a fence.