Centerum, I think I need to check out my locally gone wild cultivars. For heat resistance (wierd to be talking about heat resistance in January) and ability to reseed themselves, else they wouldn't still be out in the weed fields. Problem is that I don't have any on our propery and most fields near us are either woods, grazed or subdivisions. Chickweed has been an excellent protection for early basal breaks (succulent leaves en masse). And there are few things more universally called weeds than chickweed. If we have a wet spring, we should have wild sweet peas somewhere on the 18 miles between us and town. Does anyone else see the wild ones? Ann

I'm surprised nobody has posted on this thread for so long. Anyway, while knowing which general classes of roses are best, it's just as important to consider the specific individuals within those classes. The most successful rose I grew while in Mississippi was the Cherokee Rose (Rosa Laevigata). Second in vigor and health was the yellow Banksia. Third, I suppose, would be Rosa Fortuniana, which I planted (mislabeled by Bracy's, as usual) thinking I'd bought the white Banksia. Fortuniana is a hybrid of white Banksia and Cherokee. I've also had spectacular results with Mermaid and Fortune's Double Yellow. And while the endlessly touted 'New Dawn' was a bit of a disappointment, the once-blooming parent from which it sported, Dr. W. VanFleet, was a disease-free giant (I measured some thirty-foot canes!!!). My family's 'official rose' is Silver Moon, a big, disease-free old Hybrid Wichuriana. My Great-Grandmother bought one during her glory days as one of the richest women in the Delta. After the Cotton Panic of '25 decimated her plantations and vaporized the banks in which she owned stock, our struggling family would make cuttings from that original plant, as they established their own homes. A big, pushy, loud church leveled her home in the Eighties (purchasing it with promises not to, of course...pathological lying being that denomination's other salient trait), and bulldozed her gardens. But that rose's progeny lives on, from River Oaks to Mountain Brook. Today, a generation of budding gardeners is making cuttings of those Silver Moons, for homes from Mendocino to the Isle of Palms. I also grew up with another probable Wichuriana hybrid that seems to have been 'Gardenia'. Lemon-Creme blooms, tea fragrance, apple-green foliage, totally free of disease. Dorothy Perkins is a Wichuriana hybrid, which, while prone to a dusting of surprisingly-attractive mildew, is otherwise fabulously healthy and wonderfully easy to root. I think I've seen Dorothy's deeper pink sister, 'Debutante', naturalized in the hedgerows, along roads leading to Natchez. Anyway, the Wichuriana class, while once-blooming (except for New Dawn), are fabulously healthy, and mostly immune to the occasional cold snaps which complicate things down south. Dr. W. VanFleet, BTW, is also a Hybrid Wichuriana. Before we moved up here, I was falling in love with what was sold to me (at the Greater Belhaven Farmer's Market)as the non-climbing form of the Polyantha, Clotilde Soupert. Not a trace of blackspot; continual bloom; wonderful scent; petal-packed, cabbagey little blooms, fading to a nice, neutral fleshy-pinky-offwhite; blooms well into early winter; GOOD SHADE TOLERANCE: what's not to love? An aunt in South Carolina passed this little mnemonic along to me from a rose lecture she'd attended: "Polyantha Noisette likes her Tea in a China cup." That sums up, pretty well, the classes of antique ever-blooming roses best for the South. Walking to class at Tulane, back in the days when it was still safe to be a couple of blocks lakeside from St. Charles, I'd pass rundown Uptown Victorian houses with ancient Tea roses out front. Can't tell you the names, but the old teas (and very first Hybrid Teas) develop a quite pleasant and substantial architecture. They'd cheer me up, blooming well into December, on basically neglected plants. The Hybrid musk with which I grew up was 'Eutin'. My Grandmother had her two out beneath some Pecan trees. Even with the shade and the sap (and without pruning), they bloomed all summer. I remember a fragrance which traveled far from the plant, although the plant is not listed as being fragrant. The Growth habit is upright and awkward, though, and you will have to prune a lot. Eutin could once be spotted in humble gardens all over Mississippi. Personally, I've grown the Hybrid Musks Cornelia and Vanity. Vanity has a very open growth habit, shocking pink blooms, and healthy foliage. Cornelia matures into a huge mess of a shrub, with plenty of blackspot, but also plenty of vigor. The fragrance is up there with Hyacinth, Winter Honeysuckle, Frangipani, and Lemon Blossom...it's that wonderful. One spray will perfume a hospital room or an office. Grow it in your Kitchen Garden, where its big, messy ever-blooming self won't be an aesthetic disaster. Or plant it in the front yard (as I foolishly did, at an apartment building I owned), and spend all your waking hours pruning it.

Thanks, oldblush, for researching that for me. I'm seeing what I assume to be Austins around Madison. The ones planted in filtered light seem to be doing splendidly. I see no disease at all. Of course, they could as easily be from Romanticas from Meilland. Blackspot is thwarted when temperatures exceed ninety-something. I'm hoping those three hot months will allow the Boursault roses to keep their leaves (I know: you have to water like crazy to keep the leaves on during that time). I'm opposed to sprays, but may try the Cornell Mixture this year. Anntn6b: you're telling me exactly what I wanted to hear. The heat is maybe what the Boursaults lacked in cool-summer climates. After all, plenty of newly discovered roses were sickly in Europe, but robust in the American South. Nice to see you're near Knoxville. I lived there in my nursery school/kindergarten years. People think Montana is beautiful country. That's only because they haven't seen the Smokey Mountains.

I live close to Nacogdoches...south and east of Tyler...and they will not live through the winter here. They are extremely hard to root. I did over 100 cuttings every way imaginable...water, potting soil, hard wood, soft wood, and got 2 plants...from the potting soil during winter in the greenhouse. They will NOT bloom if you give them too much nitrogen...they will just make leaves. I put mine in the greenhouse the first year but left it in the ground the second year thinking maybe it had made runners and would come back but no such luck. It was really pretty but too much trouble for me! Likes full sun but shaded roots and lots of water. She bloomed better in the fall and on into November...just a few blooms along until it began to cool down. Have photos but have forgotten how to post them. Good luck, Mary