Dawn, you could let the roses grow and not prune them unless they encroach on the window. They could be freestanding and you just trim the parts that you don't want. That would look very romantic. It is true that you should not prune them for a couple of years anyway. Good luck.

Do I understand that you're trying to turn the WHOLE wall into green rose? In that case, attach canes in a random, spreading, upward bound pattern. It doesn't matter where branches go except that they go up and spread out. I haven't used the devices you're using so don't know how difficult it will be. I would have built a trellis that, I think, would have been easier to attach rose parts to. If it was built as a single unit (or three parts that assemble) it would be easy to attach it to the wall at only 3 main places, and anchored to posts in the ground.

Hi Dawn! This sounds really lovely! One of the benefits to Yardvaarks design is also that the rose won’t be growing right up against the wall, and that little bit of airflow will help with sun scorch and disease. What side of the house is it? If the brick wall gets too hot it will affect the Rose‘s growth, and could even kill it.

Most climbers flower more with diagonally trained canes.

I think Sheila’s idea to let them be free-standing is a great one—much less work! Keep us posted on how it all works out! :-)

I agree with Sheila and Perma on letting your Sally holmes grow for a little while without major pruning so you have nice long canes to work with.

I am also training two Sally H on a window on my south wall, but I have siding and not brick so a bit different. In general when training climbers the key is to bend the canes as horizontally as posible in order to get blooms all over. The idea of letting the roses be free standing sounds wonderful also and would look great. If you really want trained climbers then training as horizontally as posible is the way to go. My Sally H are currently free standing at 6 feet tall and I will start training them this year so I have no good pictures to offer. While trellises work very well the brick clips are a wonderful idea for a training a climber without any apparent supporting structures showing and I think the results would be very pleasing. I would also highly recommend watching the Paul Zimmerman’s videos on rambler training. It is very good.

these are not my images and I am not trying to steal them in anyway :). Just thought it would show some good ideas on how to cover the walls around your window.

Sheila- This wall is white and bare with only a window. It is just missing something. I chose to just add some roses rather than add something like shutters. Freestanding would be nice but I want to take up some space up top.

Yardvaark- Thank you so much for taking the time to draw that out. I actually hadn't though of a trellis of any sort because my mind went straight for the old school crosshatch type of trellis you see at the box stores, and I didn't want that. Your design is perfect, and we actually have some cedar beams/posts in front of our home, so this design using cedar would just be perfect. If all of the wood is covered in foliage and blooms, that is great. But during the more bare times, there would still be a nice wood structure to look at. I showed my husband and he said he we could get it done this weekend.

Perma n’ Posies- It is actually a wall facing SW. We are in the woods with lots of tall pines other trees around, so while it does get pretty hot, the hottest sun is usually dappled by trees. I think that helps a lot. The rose to the left side of the window was doing great then lost all of its leaves during the hottest part of the summer and struggled. Hopefully getting them off of the hot brick with some air circulation around would be helpful. I am determined to get them settled in and thriving. Fingers crossed that they can survive in this spot.

dianela7bnorthal - The brick clips are really great, but it really limits what and where I can attach. I had difficulty getting them on my brick and had to grind mortar out here and there. Then I can attach plants to them. Then as the plant grows, it really needs to be attached somewhere else, so I am adding another clip, trying to attach 2 canes per clip so I don't have a ton of clips everywhere, which doesn't work well and keeps the canes close together. I think this trellis idea would be much better!

Thank you so much everyone! I will take some before and after pics to share and post them soon.

Love LOVE what you have done 😀. thank you for the update. I always look forward to seeing how things turnout and you are well on your way to a beautiful rose set up.

That's amazing! I hope you'll continue to keep us updated!

Your roses will love it! Great job! 😊