it gets 8 hrs sun in the summer

What colors do you want most in your bouquets? Alternately, which colors do you not want? Is fragrance a must-have or a nice bonus?

The cultivars that will work best for you depend on where (roughly) you live - this is where winter survivability and disease pressure come in. There's a bunch of beautiful hybrid teas that are just too tender for me in a cold z6, but those same roses are great for people in zone 7. The Canadian Explorer series are generally wonderful for cold-zoners, but some start having problems with disease (black spot, etc) once you warm up to z6a and 6b.

Oh, and what kind of flower form do you like in roses? The typical high-centered HT look (think Valentines' bouquet roses) or the petal-packed, cupped shaped roses (David Austin's trademark look)? Do you like/not mind "quilling" - this is when the rose petals curl as they open, giving opened blooms a Christmas bow look. Or are you like me and don't usually like it?

That's a lot of questions, but it will help us give you better answers. I think it's possible to have a no-spray rose cutting garden, but you may have to make some compromises - for example, if you don't like the no-spray fragrant reds for your area, go with a non-fragrant one and have your fragrant roses be the other colors.

More information would be a big help. But I must say straight out that, if it was mine, I'd plan on covering that wall with tall climbing roses. Then, in front of this back-drop, I'd put large shrubs and smaller climbers trained on tripods and/or pillars, to add vertical accents. In front of that, I'd place smaller roses. I'd throw plenty of companion plants in the mix, too...

Roses will not screen that view, especially in the winter. Consider planting a tall hedge along the fence with rose bushes in front of it. That way, when you do your winter pruning, you will at least be looking at green bushes rather than an ugly fence. Good luck. It’s a nice sunny spot and your rose garden should thrive!

I recently helped a friend with something similar. And it is doable. However unless you have very big vigorous climbers you may not hide the windows. We extended the supporting posts up a few feet and are running a small Arbor type thing across the top to give climber something to grow on horizontally in the hopes they will spill down and cover the interstitial space. Bart, I like the idea of pillars etcetera in front and will be suggesting that. I'm also glad to see you posting back here.

thank you all for your responses. i’m in zone 9b, northern california.
i’m planning on letting the roses bloom on the bush but i’d also like to be able to cut some roses for my house and friends so that’s why i’d like a very full garden. i’m choosing all blush and apricot shades, i’ve picked a couple I like. Wollerton Old Hall, Princess Charlene of Monaco, Ambridge, Lichfield Angel. I like the look of roses that are jam-packed full of petals so if you know of any varieties that are cream, blush or apricot please let me know! Im not sure the differences between hybrid tea/ floribundas etc. so i’m mostly choosing based on size and color. Is that a bad idea? I imagine anything that says zone 9 on it will grow well in my area. I got a soil test and have excellent soil that is in desperate need of some compost.

Bart I like the idea of the pillars and tripods and climbing roses! I’m sure I can find a list of companion plants on google. Are there any in particular you lean to that are mostly green? I want the garden to be green, and light cream, blush and apricot

Here is my 2 cents on the subject:

Install posts, about 3-4 feet high and 3 feet away from the fence, with each post at the same spacing as the fence post. Connect each post with a strong wire, cable, pipe, or board. Plant your roses next to the new posts and/or under the connecting members. As the climbers grow start bending them such that they end up horizontal. That will cause laterals to form thus giving you more roses and leaves.

Within no time you will not see much of that fence….. Winter time is a difference story…. sorry.

As for the neighbors looking across the top of the fence into your yard I suggest you install another row of posts, maybe 8 feet high with a 2ft H x 8 ft L piece thick pressure treated lattice connecting them.

Where do I place the posts, you ask…..

Look at the picture you posted where the shadow ends at a post close to a shadow of a tree. AND lets assume the sun is shining left to right.

From the lower limbs of that tree you could not see the window looking up the angle of the shadow, right. Now if you placed a board on that post, say 18 inches high the shadow from it would hit the tree about half way up it. I know this is crazy but bear with me…. lol

Lets say there is a post on the fence half way between the tree and the actual post. Again place a board on that new post such that the shadow blocks the top section of the tree. We now have shadow covering the hole tree.

Okay, lets now rotate the posts so they are in line with the windows and the spot you took the picture from. By adjusting the boards up or down on the posts and positioning the posts in the right place you block the windows. An ivy planted at the base of the posts, then weaved through the lattice should block the window even during the winter. 8 posts should do it, with 4 per line.

You could connect the two lines of posts together forming a nice area.

Hope this helps.... Keep safe....

Here is a quick drawing…..

I would plant climbers along the fence but, as Toolbelt motioned above, give them their own tall climbing structures (don't attach them to the fence). Once the roses reach the top of the fence, they will invade your neighbors' space and the neighbors have the right to cut what's in their airspace. This way you'll keep the roses within your yard. It will also improve air circulation around the plants and keep them healthy.

And in front of the climbers, you can add your cutting garden, with companion plants:

Sorry, I always try to credit pics from the internet but this one appears on so many sites, I don't know where it originated.

What a fun project! I totally agree about make a tall support structure separate from the fence if you want complete control over the growth of a vigorous climber. Depending on the type of climber they often grow across the top and send up shoots that are 3 feet or more taller than the structure they are on. Also my roses are almost never bare of leaves in Southern Californian because we don’t have real winter. I also get blooms 365 days a year from a wide variety of rose types. I don’t know if that would be the case for you in Northern California though. The only time I see bare twigs on my roses is if I hand pluck every leaf or we get a severe Santa Ana wind event that shears all the leaves off, mostly the older ones since winds come in the fall. My Madame Alfred Carriere (an awesome climber that is very vigorous) was mostly denuded of leaves 3 weeks ago in a severe windstorm. And yet here she is today without blooms (she mostly blooms in Spring and Summer) almost fully back to her green leafy self. Also my Tea roses (tropical roses that are not Hybrid Teas) give huge flushes of blooms for me in December. The Teas I have are Monsieur Tillier, Madame Joseph Schwartz (not recommended for foggy areas of NCal since she has mildew tendencies), Rosette Delizy, G. Nabonnand and Valentine, which is technically a Hybrid Tea but acts and looks like a Tea. Also my favorite rose Marie Pavie is an incredible bloomer. Sweet Chariot and MP both haven’t been without blooms for me since about 18 months ago; I planted them 24 months ago. Both have incredible wafting fragrance and are short roses for the front of the bed. Both are evergreen in SoCal. I highly recommend them for the front of your bed. Here is my MAC and 2 yr old MT all pictures taken today.

Toolbelt: thank you for the photo and description! i do love the idea of lattice on the fence. creates some privacy but i do not have to build a whole new fence. I have to admit I can’t quite get the idea of the boards covering the shadow of the tree, but ivy on the lattice might work just fine, no?

Here is a picture of what I had in mind. Roses grow up and over the Arbor. This way it is not in the neighbor's yard and can hang down and cover the window.

Hi Stephanie. Those climbers are so tall. Do you remember how tall the tag said your climber would get? Some say 10 ft, 12 ft.. I’m wondering if that means the excuse my novice canes will grow 10 ft tall (or in my case, long; training them horizontally to cover the fence) ? Or will the flowering stems grow to reach 10-12 ft?

Vaporvac wow i love that idea! it will give some privacy but still allow light into my neighbors window

Roses on both side of the hoop trellis closet to the camera is Madame Alfred Carriere at Descanso Gardens in August. You can see how the growth shoots up along the top and would totally block your neighbors windows. They trim all those shoots back to about 12 inches in mid January, which I do for mine too. They also remove every leaf, which I have no time for and refuse to ever do. The rational is to remove leaves from the garden that carry diseases from one season to the next. My feeling is if they are that disease prone, I will just replace them with a variety that likes my climate. Currently I have one rust bucket, Paul Neyron, that is going to be replaced by Maggie as soon as he finishes his current and last flush of blooms. Maggie is patiently waiting in her pot. Here are also a couple of his last blooms.

Kimi, if you are looking for small roses at the front of your beds you might want to consider Cream Veranda. It is all of the colors you are looking for, very healthy and so beautiful. Plus it stays small!

Oh we cross posted. ***Vapor vac that picture is exactly what I had in mind for blocking the windows! Plus they will get to see beautiful blooms out their window so they are some lucky neighbors! ***Kimi, Madame Alfred Carriere can get huge, but you can see in the Descanso Gardens picture that they can be kept at about 15-20 feet total length. However, part of the reason they sprout such vigorous top growth across the top of the hoop trellis is exactly because it is such a vigorous rose that would love to climb into and eat a tree. I honestly have my MAC in way too small of a spot so I have to trim those sprouts 3 times a year to keep her in check. Another equally vigorous climber is Reve d’Or, which might be more disease resistant in your climate. MAC gets some mildew for me, but only in the Spring. In fog zones she might be a mildew disaster. Here is my baby Reve d’Or that has 30 feet of fence to crawl along. I am scrupulous about keeping him on the top of the fence only. The lower wires are for Climbing Pinkie, which might make it to the gate. Climbing Pinkie is a short climber. Reve d’Or has a spectacular fall bloom at Huntington Gardens. I was there today but didn’t get a picture. MAC doesn’t bloom in the fall for me, but she has a spectacular Spring bloom that is followed by several smaller flushes until mid Summer. Climbers usually have a big Spring flush and scattered summer blooms unless they are once bloomers and then only a Spring flush. Reve d’Or is in a rare category of having an incredible fall bloom period. He is know for his spectacular fall flush.

From all of your ideas I think I’ve begun to settle on this. Green hedges in the back, 2 tripods of climbers, lattice on top of the fence. I will fill in the rest of the area with 4ft and 3ft bushes. When the bush says 3ft x 3ft does that include the flowers in the height?

Now, if i want to grow climbing roses horizontally in order to encourage more flowers, how would i grow them against the bushes? Will I need a trellis? what shape? Could I run horizontal thick gauge wire and attach to that?

I would not do a bush hedge and then do horizontally trained climbing roses in front of them unless you had a 3 foot walkway between them so you could walk behind the Roses to trim the hedge. I have a podocarpus hedge and it needs trimmed 3 times a year. However a hedge in back and tripods of climbing roses in front of them would be fabulous and easy to take care of. For tripods make sure to get short climbers like Lady of Shallot pictured here. This is a young 2 year old plant and this picture was taken today. She blooms a lot! My obelisk is just over 7 feet high after 8 inches of the legs were sunk into the ground. I am winding her around the obelisk to maximize to blooms. Blooms on a climber happen on the side shoots.

Only the big rambling climbers with thin flexible canes will work for this labor intensive technique, but it’s so fun to see. Makes me want to try it. https://www.gardensillustrated.com/garden-design/training-roses-sculptures/

Here is the traditional horizontal training technique for climbing roses.

https://youtu.be/iNfSaH5fLUM

If you look very close at my first obelisk picture, you can see a few red side shoot that are just forming. The tips of these shoots will have blooms. The blooms that you currently see in the picture are on the tips of the two long canes that I wrapped around the obelisk. They were wrapped this way only 2 weeks ago. After watching the horizontal Rose training video, then just imagine that instead of tying them out straight you wrap them around the obelisk instead. You can only do obelisk wrapping with Rose varieties that are suited to this style. That would be they have thinner flexible canes. Some of the very modern large flowered climbers have very thick and brittle canes that would break instead of wrapping. You can always post to the rose forum to ask about a specific variety being suitable for obelisk training.

I love the obelisks, but still wouldn't hesitate to grow climbers on that fence. I don't know where she lived in relation to you, but cori ann in Norcal had a very similar fence and her climbers completely covered it, remaining green year-round. I'll try to find a link to one of her many posts.https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5279074/massive-backyard-remodel-look-what-you-all-helped-me-create#n=88

Yes I agree with Vaporvac that you could grow climbing roses right on the fence using the training and pruning technique that is shown in the Heirloom Roses video that I posted above. They won’t get a lot of air circulation so just make sure any variety you grow are resistant to the main issues in your area. Most people in Northern California cite rust and powdery mildew as the worst offenders.

Here is some inspiration

https://teddingtongardener.com/2019/06/11/part-one-of-a-pruning-care-and-maintenance-plan-for-your-roses-what-to-do-while-they-are-still-asleep-starring-mottisfont-abbey/

That is inspirational Stephanie!

Kimi

The picture Vaporvac posted is exactly what I was trying to describe. All you would have to do is add a 2ft H piece of lattice between each post of the Arbor and you would have what I tried to describe. With a Clematis vine woven throughout the lattice you would not see the windows.