Climbing Roses.
Accentuate the Vertical.

Climbing roses add a dimension to your garden that no other rose bush can. It builds on the vertical, to lift your eyes, and develop your garden into a three dimensional space. They can be rigidly formal or allowed to meander: trained on an arbour or left of their own free will to grow up a dead tree. But more than that, climbing roses are ideal for companion planting, something that is difficult with your average Tea Rose bush bed!

Click here to look at the article on Rose Types

Companion planting is a very important consideration for some gardeners. Not only can you grow other climbers such as clematis beside, and even with a climber but the base of the rose, often referred to as "the bare legs", is ideal for lower growing perennials, especially if you time the blooms of the perennials to maximize during the middle, down time, of the climbing rose.

There are those that argue that climbers tend to be healthy as they are higher, nearer the light and away from the spores on the ground that cause blackspot. I am not sure this is completely true as so many factors come in to play. Does the rose have good air circulation, for example, and does it get watered from overhead or beneath. I think the jury may still be out on that one.

What is certain is that you must match the variety with the area you live: it needs to be hardy enough to survive, so check with your local gardener, garden centre or better still, contact your local rose society. If you are colder than zone 7 then get some advice!

Where you grow your climbing rose will affect your choice. Or to be more obvious, check how tall it's going to grow when mature! Some easily reach 30 feet or more, and if the climber is growing up a warm wall, look for even more height.
Check also that you are choosing a re-bloomer which is what most modern climbing roses do, although single bloomers often produce way more blooms.
Check that your rose will be easy to train. By that I mean check how supple the canes are going to be so that you can bend and twist them to the places you want them to go. A few climbers have very stiff canes.
Finally, if you sense that the rose will need to tolerate partial shade, check this with your garden centre. Many of them do, and when we plant them we tend to forget how and where they are going to end up: perhaps way up the wall in a shadier area!