Kiftsgate - cut my losses?

[Northernlurker]

So I bought three roses last spring. Two David Austin's as bare root and another. One of the DAs, The Pilgrim and the other rose, Lykkefund, flowered last year and this.
The Kiftsgate did not, which I did not mind last year as it was new but it shows no sign at all of flowering this year either.plus of course it's rambling everywhere. I think I've made a mistake. Will it ever flower? I could shove it somewhere else alongside wedding day or I could get rid and replace with something bushy and gorgeous. It has been fed. I think it's just ungrateful.

What would you do?

The new growth it is making now is what will bear the flowers next year.

Give it another year. I had a rose that did this. It spent two years focussing on its root system, and then finally flowered in its third year. It has bloomed its socks off every year since.

Hmmmmm interesting. It had growth last year that could have flowered this I thought.

I am in year 4 with my kiftsgate and I am hoping for flowers next year. I was expecting that tbh.

4 years? It's dragging it out!

Is it growing mostly upwards or arching over? Someone explained recently that a lot of climbers naturally want to go upwards as far as they can for maximum light then when they run out of support and flop over they 'know' they've reached the top of the canopy and flower. I don't know if that applies to rambling roses, but it's why you train some stems of climbing roses horizontally/arching over.

Some if it is flopping over the top of a fence. Some is trying to climb a tree.

I feel bad because it's flourishing but a rose that hasn't flowered is just a spiky bush!

My kiftsgate didn’t flower until it was 15feet up in the top of a hawthorn. It’s now flowering wonderfully, but has engulfed the hawthorn, two holly trees, part of my neighbours garden, and is mounting an attack on a lime tree. I prune it with a saw.

In other words, unless you’re in a stately home with gardens to match, it would be better to start again with something less vigorous. Rambling Rector is another to avoid.

Made up my mind, it's gone! Quite an expensive mistake. Never mind