Lindsey, where do you garden and what is your zone? So much depends on weather conditions, and it would be helpful if you could add your zone in your profile, after your name.

Ingrid--I am zone 7 in Virginia. We have cold winters here and hot, humid summers.

Lindsey

I have 7VA in my profile, but it doesn't show next to my name.

Lindsey

Yeah. I think a lot of us have had to just add things to our name.

Lindsey, I see "7AVA" next to your name now.

Just to be clear, your white moss is different from Shailer's White Moss, sport of the Common Moss? I don't know how much it matters in answering your questions, but sometimes it does, so I thought I'd clarify. I believe these two white Mosses have gotten mixed up in commerce over the centuries. Where did your plant come from? Palatine or Pickering back in the day? (Just guesses since your rose is grafted.)

I am hoping someone in your area can answer to regional specifics. If it helps at all to know this, I've grown a number of Mosses in Portland that "fall on top of themselves". Mosses are such a romantic class, and yet they can be so untidy, right? I've mostly ended up tying mine to fences like wall shrubs or propping them with supports of some kind. I let them arch a bit to encourage them to break in bloom along the canes if they are so inclined.

Captain John Ingram has been better behaved for me over the years. I'm growing an adolescent CJI in my current garden, and he's all over the place at the moment, but I haven't really pruned him yet. With pruning, the Common Moss can be a pretty nice self supporting shrub, too (in Portland). William Lobb and lots of others, not-so-much. Most of my Mosses have been less shade tolerant than many OGRs, too, if that info speaks to your situation. I tried to push some into the shade a bit and they became bloom stingy and floppier than ever.

Anyway, I'm sure others in your area will have much more to offer than I do. I love that you are growing such an amazing collection of OGRs! Visiting your garden must be like time traveling, taking a journey through history at its most sublime. Carol