From the 100 mile marker on the Albany Post Road -

No. Just No.

Now there are once blooming ramblers that will easily do what you want. But the usual, warm climate suspects? No.

Brendan: For your long fence with lots of sun, or a 10 feet wall: I copy your list with my comments next to it:

Abe Darby: Does get tall at rose park, 7 feet tall in fall, and 4 to 5 feet tall in spring. Bush is dense and upright & grafted on Dr.Huey.

-Alchymist Kelly in Zone 4 grows it, and it takes a few years before blooming well

-Polka I grew it as own-root & died through my zone 5 winter. Best as grafted. Jay-jay in the Netherlands, zone 6 & pH 8 soil has a BIG Polka growing along his fence.

-Princess Charlene de Monaco Very vigorous & very healthy as own root, mine easily get to 5 feet tall but I brutally prune it to keep it 3 feet. Best against a wall since the growth is uneven .. with some short canes, some tall canes & NOT a dense shrub like Abe Darby.

-Ohio Bell hardy to zone 6b. if no one comment in HMF, then it's not safe to buy. Tammy in TN with over a 1,000 roses joked that the roses that she got with zero comments nor rating on HMF .. turn out to be losers. Same with me, the roses which I'm the only one who put a review in HMF turn out to be total losers.

-Papi Delbard hardy to zone 6b, iffy on winter survival, Polka is hardy to zone 5b and it died through my winter. French roses are NOT as winter-hardy as Austin roses.

-Jasmina - clay folks dislike it & reported stingy. But it does well for Khalid's LOAMY & SANDY soil. Its ratings on HMF is bad.

-James Galway Growth is UPRIGHT and TALL (easily get over 6 feet for 1st-year own-root), best against a wall, will be hard to train along the fence. It needs ungodly amount of water and sulfate of potash to bloom. VERY HEALTHY as own-root.

I would recommend Tess of d'Ubervilles for along the fence, the canes are more flexible & can be trained horizontally. My Tess is VERY HEALTHY, with a nice raspberry red color. Also look into Kordes roses for along the fence.

Kordes roses have DENSE & HEALTHY foliage, very bushy and they will look good along the fence. Poseidon is perfect compact shape in my garden & always healthy.

Any Austin roses listed in hedge category would be good along the fence. I recommend Queen of Sweden along the fence: growth is dense & upright & tall (no octopus cane), and foliage is very healthy. I gave mine away since it doesn't have much scent, but it has perfect bush-shape.

Thanks Straw and MadGallica, appreciate the tips. MadGallica, as a fellow upstater, would you recommend any fast growing cane hardy ramblers or climbers that would work for our area? Trying to fill a tall wall on the house that gets good sun and soil in it's bed. Keep trying to read up on cane-hardy climbers that would fit but lots of conflicting reports...here's a list I've found, but if you have any other thoughts on tall/fast growers I could train on trellis I already built on the wall, I'd love to learn more for our climate.

I've seen Quadra mentioned, but I don't like red. Hoping for whites and lighter colors hopefully. Keep reading that lots of these below form more of a bush and wouldn't make tall canes to climb until 10+ years. If that's the case, my dream of the wall filled with roses might just be impossible and I'll move on to planning for some tall evergreens there. Or any other ideas for quick growing flowering vine types for house wall? Thanks!

1. Alchymist
2. Captain Samuel Hollande
3. Félix Leclerc
4. Henry Kelsey
5. John Cabot
6. John Davis
7. Louis Jolliet
8. Marie-Victorin
9. ‘Polestar
10. Quadra
11. William Baffin

Listen to Madgallica lol. I have Abe here, he's like knee high. Papi Delbard I grow as a shrub, is newer and doing ok, but wouldn't call it a climber, lovely flowers though! Your second list has bettr options but I don't grow any of these, sorry. You can also search for Nippstress posts on here but I recall that her number one climber was Quadra.

My neighbor's John Davis is only a few years old and he's 6+ feet tall. I had a Polestar at a former house in z4 and it took 2 years for the canes to get to 5 feet.

It might not be the color scheme you want but have you looked at America? HMF has it rated to zone 4b, I've been super impressed with how mine handled the recent storm. 6 inches of snow, melted off the next day, and then dropped to 12F overnight and the new growth is still growing. Great rebloom, spectacular fragrance, and the blooms last for ages without looking ratty.

Dingo, great to know. Abe doesn't get very big even as a bush for you? Was thinking of maybe trying that and Papi as just shrubs, but not if they get 1-2 ft tall only.

Joey- Thanks for the tips, maybe I will just give John Davis and Polestar a try with America. I like the color of America, doesn't look super deep red which I'm not a huge fan of. It's a wide, tall wall, so I'm trying to decide whether any rose is truly cane hardy enough to train upwards over the next 5 years and have it worth my while, rather than just planting some tall junipers or other evergreens and be done with it.

I was thinking wisterias might work, but again, don't want to wait a lifetime and also can't have any plants that attach to the wall and damage my place. Don't think clematis would get that tall and be hardy. Could always just take down the trellis I made for roses and do evergreens, with rose bushes in front of them for color.

You probably aren't really getting conflicting reports. It is just that marginal plants can respond very differently given relatively small changes in climate. So if you just ignore everything that is said about roses west of the Appalachian Range, you'll probably be OK. The problem is that *you* have to be responsible for the filtering because many people find sitting on their hands too uncomfortable.

I"m not sure I understand what you are looking for. Once a rambler gets more than about 10 ft in the air it becomes technically difficult to get up there to train it. So IMO, what you are looking for against the wall is Darlow's Enigma. It isn't a climber, but a respectably large, self supporting shrub. The AgCanada 'climbers' are also large shrubs, but they often can't hold up their large, heavy, stiff canes so do better with some sort of support. Then there are the once blooming ramblers. The only one I'm currently growing is Baltimore Belle, but there are a bunch of multiflora hybrids like Veilchenblau which are fairly popular. I can't grow them because I live in a lime pit.

Makes sense. Still new to roses and how they grow, so I think I just read that climbers produce longer canes that over the years could be trained up a trellis and keep going up (to cover a house wall) and came up with my idea too quickly.

I didn't realize so many will often have their canes die and start from the ground up each spring. So I had planned for a group of them along an empty house wall I have, and built a trellis for it. But now it seems like the idea of having a giant cloud of roses trained up the wall towards the roofline might be more for a warmer area. Baltimore Belle looks beautiful, I'll look up Veilcheblau. Might just be best to go with some plants that are tall but I won't have to worry about winter protection or too much dying off each season

Oh, one more thing. Forget you ever heard the words 'winter protection'. Around here, winter protection kills.

Thanks for the tips on each of those. Sounds like Quadra might be one to reach the heights of my wall over time, maybe I'll reconsider a deep red rose covering the wall then. Has yours overtaken your arbor?

Any thoughts on growing hardy honeysuckle up the wall and then having some rose bushes in front of it that stay shrub size? Or would having a vine planted in the same bed, trained up my house wall create problems for the rose bushes in front, like your John Cabot with the grapes and creeper?

From my experience that sounds like a nightmare. Seriously. If anything at all I would consider a clematis first.

I grow honeysuckle up my house with roses in front, but I am in zone 5b. Sometimes my honeysuckle winterkills down to the ground. Other years it stays alive to the top of my 2 story house. If you try to mix honeysuckle and roses, just leave a lot of room for the honeysuckle as it wants to get big. William Baffin will work for you.

If you were down here in NC I would recommend American Wisteria and evergreen clematis. Do you have a local botanical garden or native plant society? It'd be fun to plant some native vines to climb the trellis with roses in front of them. I'm also growing coral honeysuckle which is lovely... I have a lot of privacy fence so last year I got a half-dozen climbers at a local plant nursery which specializes in native plants.

So many roses look better with a green backdrop, and vines that bloom once a year would really add to the show.

There's a big difference in the vigor of different vines and how they attach to surfaces. For instance: Chinese Wisteria will take over your house, but American Wisteria is well behaved and lovely. It clings by twisting so needs wires or a trellis. English ivy, on the other hand, (very invasive, do not plant, this is just an example) clings to flat surfaces with little root things and does not need wires. So you do need to do a little research on what you plant.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I tried to read up on ivy/vines/honeysuckle/clematis for my zone. A nightmare indeed.

Can't have something that grows accidentally into my house siding. A 2 story trellis full of clematis sounds like a nice idea. Couldn't figure out if there are hardy types that grow that tall. Found a local place that has prairie peace, lillian gibson and some other hardy roses, but not sure how long those would take to get a decent height.

Some tall, narrow evergreens it is.

Major Wheeler Honeysuckle is supposed to be a good one - blooms well throughout the summer. It's been on my list to buy, it might suit your needs. Lol tall evergreens are just kinda boring.

B, you should grab those hardy roses. They would be as tall as roses get where you are except Quadra or a couple of Canadians.

No, the really big ones are ramblers. Mike Lowe had Gem of the Prairies growing up the guy wire of a telephone pole. The power company pruned it back where it grew over the pole. My Baltimore Belle has at least 20 ft canes. Hiawatha will cover small buildings. Lillian Gibson is small. I've never been interested in it because it looks and acts a great deal like Applejack, but Applejack has fragrance.

This is it a bit more recently

Mad, how lovely. I still think B should grab those hardy roses since they are not that easy to find and then buy all your rambler ideas too.

Beautiful pics ,Mad

Al and Dingo- Honeysuckle(and clematis) are beautiful, I am planning on growing some along the border of my property to cover my deer fence once I clear out a place to plant it. Al, you ever have problems with it damaged the surface of your house with it's vines?

SummerCloud- I agree, I enjoy roses with a more natural backdrop. Would be beautiful to have something more natural to look at instead of the giant white wall.

Wisteria is beautiful. I have climbing hydrangea going up one of my patio walls too, but I'm not sure I'll live to see the day where it grows large and flowers.

Sheila - I'm going to try to get some of them. Would be nice to have some cane hardy rose plants in the yard, especially out in the open where they can have some space to do their thing.

Mad- Great pictures, thanks so much. I've been trying to read up on rambler types. I love both Quadra and Baltimore Belle. I have a 5x10 ft wide window about 6 ft up this wall that I have to imagine working a plant around, like your awesome Quadra pictures. I don't mind if it has bare legs, I could plant a smaller shrub rose in front of a rambler at some point, and I actually enjoy when these giant ramblers have the bare-leg look over time and create a sculptural/tree form. Or it can just spill off the wall into the yard and give me something to wrestle with.

Any thoughts of something as tall and vigorous as Quadra or Baltimore Belle, but not white or red flowers? White might get lost on the white house, not sure. Last night I was looking up info on Ceske Praci Cest, Wartburg, Debutante, and Futtaker Schlingrose. All beautiful plants, but don't know how they'd do upstate compared to Quadra.

Thank you all for the ideas and tips on figuring this out!

Here's an example of what I would love in the space (quickmans photoshop). There's a back door on the right, but raised with my patio about 2-3 ft off the garden bed ground. Green marks would be ideal, red marks of it growing all over the wall would be nice, but a rose that grows up and could be trained to frame my door on the right, and window would be nice to break the wall up even if it didn't reach the roof in the end. That sounds like it might be dangerous for the plant and me anyways. Once the AC cover/box is placed I can plant other things in the bed and make it deeper.

I attached another picture of a similar idea I saw on HMF with Rosarium Uetersen. Would just need to be a taller plant in the end so it could reach above my door and not stab me every time I walked outside ;) This wall is south/west facing, so it gets a good amount of sun, hopefully that would help. Thanks again for helping me understand what might work best here. If training a rose ends up being a bad idea in the end, I'll move on to other plant ideas.

Quadra and Baltimore Belle are completely different objects. Quadra grows about 8 to 10 ft, with very stiff canes. Baltimore Belle grows 15 to 20 ft, or more, with relatively flexible canes that need support. So I'm growing it along a split rail fence. I have pictures, but it is hard to see how its growing because of all the other plants. This is a picture of ramblers on large arches at Elizabeth Park in Hartford. I think the roses are Dorothy Perkins, but they weren't labelled.

Thanks Mad, appreciate it! Sounds like Baltimore Belle might be best for height above my door/window. Not sure white would work too well since the wall is white there.

Might be best to do a narrow tree and try shorter rose shrubs in front.

BB may be white, but its leaves are green which often makes for a restful picture. You could also just use the pink species R. Setigera if a once bloomer is OK. Thus far CPCest is a once-bloomer for me, but a super charming one. Chevy Chase is a very unusual red. I consider more of a deep pink, but again a once-bloomer. Velichenblau is also gorgeous. Victorian Memory, Viking Queen and Felix Leclerc are reputed to grow in zone 5, but I've only personally observed VQ growing up an arbor in that zone. I know at least one person that grew it in upstate NY z4/5?, but I don't recall if he did anything special to keep its canes over the winter. I have a vague memory that he removed it from its support and covered it loosely with leaves. I'll try to remember to look up his posts on it.