Hi, Pepe,
I'm near Knoxville, and I know a lot about RRD in our part of the world. It is in and around Chattanooga. It's been in the rose garden at the Chattanooga Choo Choo every time we've visited the garden. It's also been in the Mills Rose Garden up in Soddy Daisy. It's in every county along 411 down to Atlanta and we saw it this spring along I-26 to your west. This spring, in early May watch for the small white blooms on R. multiflora near your home. Even though multiflora is easy to overlook, when you watch for it, you WILL find it because it is so widespread in our valleys. (Look up into the trees as well; multiflora likes to climb.)
Once you know where multiflora is, you can watch it for signs of RRD.
Also watch any big plants of New Dawn; in many gardens in our part of the world, New Dawn is the first cultivated rose to come down with RRD.

Now for the fun stuff. You're choosing to grow roses in a part of the world where almost every different kind of rose can grow. So you have a huge choice.
Do you want to spray? Is fragrance important? Do you want cottage like gardens? Will once blooming roses satisfy you, when the once is thousands of blooms on a bush? What is the style of your home?
A good almost local nursery is Appalachian Rose Nursery up in Tellico Plains. He has moderns and OGRs and a great collection of chinas and HMusks. (And very good prices for pick up.)
You are welcome to come up and visit me and my roses. I'm in Blaine, 18 miles NE of Knoxville and I have about 500 different cultivars.
Public gardens with OGRs near you aren't all that near. The Hermitage in Nashville has a historic garden attached with roses and other earlyto mid 1800 (Andrew Jackson era) plants. In Atlanta the Atlanta Botanical Garden has a large planting of OGRs. Over in northwestern SC, both Roses Unlimited and Ashdown sell roses and have them planted near their busninesses.
And do a websearch for a Southern Garden in northern Alabama for great pictures of big mature rose bushes in a growing zone and condition very like your own.

Now how fragrant and what colors do you want?
Ann

Ann,

Thanks so much for your reply. Whatever I have learned about RRD I've learned from you and the extensive material you've made available to us rose enthusiasts.
As a matter of fact, one of the first actions I took after reading your comments on RRD was to destroy a couple of large Multiflora bushes growing behind my house. They were not diseased, thankfully, and now I'm just watching for any left over root growth.
I also read your comment regarding New Dawn and its propensity to RRD. I ordered one from ARE and planted it in between a couple of Mrs. Anthony Waterers. I would much sooner do away with New Dawn which is already getting large and closing in on my two Rugosa hybrids, which I really like. Do you think I should just take it out before the apparently inevitable happens?
Now, as you say...to the fun part. As anyone else, I greatly value disease resistance (I grew mostly Chinas while living in Florida), but also highly value good fragrance and repeat. However, I would rank repeat bloom third as far as desirable characteristics. You mentioned that Rosa setigera seemed to be more resistant to RRD (not totally since you mentioned having seen an infected specimen). Where might I source one? What's your experience been like with this species?
As for color, I would really like to get a good vibrant yellow or an apricot. Would Louis Phillipe make it up here? I also planted two Mutabilis, which get enormous in Florida, and seem to show the same vigor up here. I've really been looking forward to growing so many of these rose varieties that I simply couldn't attempt in Florida due to climate and soil conditions. I know that the possibilities here are far greater. So, please let me have a list of your "all-stars".
In the long run, my goal is to establish that "cottage garden" look, with a good deal of diversity but with roses as the plants that set the tone for the garden beds.
As for rose gardens, I was spoiled, having lived just a mile or two away from the beautiful gardens at Florida Southern, under the care of Malcolm Manners. I've been to the gardens at the Choo-choo, but after what you've told me I'll probably keep my distance!
I do have a question on RRD: what time of the year would seem to be optimal for the "windblown migration" of the mites? I've yet to read up on the deeper specifics on the mites themselves.
Thanks so much for the invitation. My wife and I pass through Knoxville every once in a while on our way to get a little R&R up in Gatlinburg, so one of these days we might take you up on your gracious offer!
Pepe

Let me copy and interject some answers from what I've seen:
New Dawn which is already getting large and closing in on my two Rugosa hybrids, which I really like. Do you think I should just take it out before the apparently inevitable happens?
.....The growth you may see on the rugosas will probably depend on your soil and moisture. I've seen a bunch of local rugosas growing in sand next to Flat Creek, their roots are in flowing water. The rugosas were ten feet tall. Same cultivars in clay on a dry knoll in our garden are much shorter (almost petite). I'd keep New Dawn, but prune it to be airy, rather than massive.
You mentioned that Rosa setigera seemed to be more resistant to RRD (not totally since you mentioned having seen an infected specimen). Where might I source one? What's your experience been like with this species?
.... Setigera is magnificent. Spring bloom comes after most of the first bloom is over, so it truly extends the time of massive bloom (along with The Fairy). And often, but not every year, fall color is really good. As to a source, almost any thirty year old fence row out in the country will have them blooming on public rights of way; for you it would probably be mid May. In the wild, the bloom isn't great; it becomes great with a little bit of better soil and a little more water than dry fence lines where they fight with trees. (Look for cedar trees ten to fifteen feet tall for the right aged fence row.)
As for color, I would really like to get a good vibrant yellow or an apricot. Would Louis Phillipe make it up here?
....All chinas do well here, and I'm probably at least a half a zone colder than near downtown Chattannooga, if not a full zone colder.
I also planted two Mutabilis, which get enormous in Florida, and seem to show the same vigor up here. I've really been looking forward to growing so many of these rose varieties that I simply couldn't attempt in Florida due to climate and soil conditions. I know that the possibilities here are far greater. So, please let me have a list of your "all-stars".
......You will have to come visit in late April/early May. (Bring a shovel for suckers.)
In the long run, my goal is to establish that "cottage garden" look, with a good deal of diversity but with roses as the plants that set the tone for the garden beds.

I do have a question on RRD: what time of the year would seem to be optimal for the "windblown migration" of the mites? I've yet to read up on the deeper specifics on the mites themselves.
Tests in Iowa showed the mite populations were much greater in late August and September; those are their hot and dry times. I've seen infections move in in the late spring here, after the temps jump into the 80's in May. I worry that last summer's hot drought may have made mite populations soar and with long periods of infection of wild roses last year. So we may have even greater disease pressure this year.
The highest infection I had was a very dry summer when I kept my roses well irrigated. This past summer, I didn't keep the roses that well watered. Our well wasn't recharging the way it used to and I didn't want to take a chance with damaging the well. So I'm going to keep listening to how RRD moved last year. Esp in drought areas.
And my invitation to you is an open one, although blooms are great, just seeing the different roses and their growth habits can be interesting. And this invitation extends to anyone reading this....the house may not be picked up and the roses will never be totally weeded or mulched. But if we wait for perfection, nope, not going to go there.

Ann

Ann,

Thanks so much for your reply.
I will keep New Dawn but I already am considering R. setigera for that spot in the event New Dawn gets "bitten".
What part of the plant does the mite find optimum to feed on? Is it the soft growth?

The following is hypothetical, because until there are tens of thousands of dollars to do the tests with markers that go into the mites and can be traced through a rose, this is unproven.
But, here goes.
The stylet, the feeding apparatus through which the mite feeds is only ten microns long. That stylet can't reach into the phloem/xylem elements in the rose, yet the disease appears (as seen in the real world) to move downward in roses via phloem transport and than back out through xylem. So...hypothesis has the mite biting into undifferentiated growth meristems, some of which will become phloem elements. And there are two general places where that happens: Apical meristems and leaf bud meristems.
That picture on the opening page of the e-book of multiflora with RRD out at the end of cane is probably an apical meristem infection, gone bonkers.

Ann,

Thanks again for this wealth of information.
Is this aggressive disease flying somewhat "under the radar" of the scientific community? It seems that way. It would be surprising considering that roses are such a commonly grown garden plant; I can only imagine rose growers losing their livelihoods over this.

Pepe,

Do you mind another voice on this thread? I live in Northwest Atlanta not all that far from you in Chattanooga. In my garden, the best roses for disease resistance and fragrance are Madame Alfred Carriere, Duchesse de Brabant, and Mystic Beauty. I do spray but these get it sparingly. I have several other roses but these would be my top 3 for your top two criteria. If you don't mind spraying, Abraham Darby is a beautiful apricot with an incredible fragrance. I hope this helps. Jeff

Jeff,

Thanks so much for your suggestions. I will be on the lookout for these.
I did grow Abraham Darby in my Central Florida garden because of the beauty, fragrance, and color. Unfortunately it was a blackspot magnet.

I remember seeing a couple of local TV appearances by Chattanoogan Ted Mills who is known as the "Rose Doc" and is also a consulting rosarian for the American Rose Society (ARS).

I think at one time he was involved in the Rose Garden that was at Warner park (it's now been bulldozed)

http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_114989.asp

Maybe you can check around and see if you can get in touch with him to pick his brain about OGR's that would do well here. He'd be the man to ask.

Good luck

Ted Mills might know the one person locally in the Tristate Rose Society who grows OGRs but I do know Ted and he is a modern rose person, to the nth power.
For modern roses, there's a garden dedicated to Ted and his wife Mary Alice just north of Chattaoonga in Soddy Daisy. Lots of modern roses that have been there for about eight years.