I haven't heard of this idea before, but I can see how it would be more thorough than leaving a climber up on a pergola. Maybe as you rebuild you could make pergolas that are easy to put up and take down for this purpose?

Espalier on wooden building walls can be grown on frames that detach and allow the whole to be laid on the ground - assuming the kind of plant used will bend that much - to allow for things like house painting. However in your case the frames are the entire support system, with no wall being involved. So it does seem you would have to build something that came apart maybe half way up.

Otherwise a key point is why, specifically pruning the roses while still in position on the structure has been problematic. Maybe something that could be improved by using better ladders? How about a platform instead of a single ladder by itself? Like is used for shearing hedges, painting walls and so on?

Do you have telescoping pruners?

I think Jenny from ‘niff_barnes’ on Instagram, makes her climbing rose ‘wall art’ by taking them all off the wall and then tying back up? It seems totally reasonable to prune roses climbing on a pergola this way too. I tried to imitate her style on mine this year and I clipped off all the ties first, then spread out the canes and tied them back up. A wall is probably easier than a pergola though.

Jenny’s stand alone rose sculptures are incredible too. Mine is a poor imitation to what she does, but I’ll practice every year with these two small climbers.

Thanks, K S, Embothrium, Vaporvac, Stephanie, for your replies. To answer, our pergolas are constructed of rebar, long pieces of wood, and bamboo; and are bolted or fastened with wire or baling twine (free, strong, flexible, and re-used), so relatively simple partially to disassemble. My inclination would be to remove the horizontals and leave the vertical portions of the pergolas standing. That would be enough to get the roses down, and leave in place the portions of the pergolas that are the most work to build. Embothrium, you don't know our garden. The ground slopes; paths are narrow; the pergolas are long; the garden is big. Platforms, which I'm familiar with--we have a set, as all our buildings are multi-storey--just wouldn't work in our conditions. Vaporvac, no! I wish I did, but haven't found a good one here. I did have one for a while, and very helpful it was, but it didn't last. Stephanie, I can see how a two-dimensional espalier would work well; the pergolas are in three dimensions, so a somewhat different proposition. I appreciate all your comments.

I finished thinning my elephant 'Blanc de Vibert', and may now finally get to work on the balcony roses: 'Jaune Desprez', 'Noella Nabonnand', and 'Marechal Niel', as well as "Miss Mystery", plus 'Clemintina Carbonieri' on the escarpment that I never finished pruning. There are other odds and ends, too. Then down to the shade garden and the woods. It's a tragedy there. 'Spray Cecile Brunner' smashed and collapsed, the pergola with 'Treasure Trove' flattened to the ground, lilacs broken, trees with broken limbs and large branches down, and the ground deeply pitted and madly torn up by porcupines, (probably) wild boars, and perhaps badgers as well. Horrible. The few comforting sights include flourishing patches of three kinds of snowdrops, currently in full bloom, the sprouting snowflakes, also doing well, and the various other early spring flowers. We had to introduce almost all of these and there aren't enough of them, but they've settled in and some are beginning to increase. I want to see our woods full of flowers, especially the natives, which are lovely.

P.S. @Embothrium, we have zillions of ladders, suited for every conceivable purpose. They're necessary when one's world is as steep as ours is.

Oh, Melissa, what a challenge! This makes my gopher problem look easy. At least I don't have wild boars. I know your roses will grow from the ground where they smashed, but what a heartache.

Melissa, wow! Wild boars! They sound quite destructive! Your garden sounds amazing though. Daisy, good to hear from you. I agree that plants beat lawn! I so want to visit gardens in England, a dream vacation when this pandemic is over.

Sheila, better the devil you know? The wild boars make a mess, but they don't kill anything (except certain bulbs: no tulips for me!). Stephanie, the boars are bad, but the porcupine is awful. It digs deep holes to get at bulbs and tubers, getting in among the roots of shrubs, throwing masses of dirt aside, and tossing around the lengths of log I use as steps.

My garden is amazing to me. Henry Mitchell said that, that gardens need to be, not perfect, but wonderful. My garden is anything but perfect, but it's my Eden. I've lived with it for eighteen years and it's full of stories I've lived with it.

Daisy, somehow we found room to lower the roses, though it did mean DH walked all over the strawberries in one bed. He has that bad habit of thinking that, if he doesn't see anything, nothing's there. Very bad for herbaceous peonies. I think that our garden, steep and full of stuff as it is, still has more room than yours, from what I recall seeing pictures of it.

Melissa, your porcupines sound as bad as badgers!

I know what you're talking about when you say "steep"; my garden is very much so. Actually, our house is, too-lots of steps...

Hello, Bart! How are you doing? What's going on in your garden?

In pre-porcupine days we had badger damage, and it was maddening, but the porcupines are still the worst. You don't have them? They come from the south.

Yesterday I had to take DH for his vaccination, and then today was gray, windy, and cold (not rainy enough: it's droughty here). So I haven't been able to get out for a while. Spring is springing, however: early daffodils, violets, buttercups, primroses, and so on. There are some pretty things to look at, in spite of the wreckage, which looks as though it's going to take much of the year to clean up.

Our house is three stories, so I totally understand about the steps.