Greetings, Marion, from a fellow Livermore-ian. I have had Alister Stella Grey on a 6' west-facing board fence at the top of a slope in my backyard for more than 10 years now. The blooms are unfazed by heat and dryness and it carries a smattering of sweet-smelling blooms even between flushes. It is also not rampant and very polite (this was the Vintage clone, however, reputed on their website to be more demure and more remontant than others -- it would be interesting to hear about other Alister Stella Grey clones).

I had a very large Crespuscule (sadly lost to oak-root fungus) in a less-challenging but full-sun position that also did well in heat, by my standards, though the blossoms would get singed around the edges during the worst heat waves. However, I think that there aren't many that don't suffer that when the temps go over 100 for days on end. To my nose, Crespuscule was not as fragrant as other tea-noisettes. Crepsuscule can get rather large as a climber, judging by the one at the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden -- I grew mine as a free-standing shrub, 8' tall and 10' wide.

Mme. Alfred Carriere is also fragrant and a real champ in the heat (I have one -- of three -- on the west side of my house), but she is most likely way too vigorous for your situation with an arbor. Even on an 8' x 8' x 10' heavy wood trellis, she's a bit much.

One that I can definitely not recommend for a hot situation is Jaune Desprez. Though I adore it, the flowers do wilt quickly when it gets over 85 degrees or so.

On reflection, most of the tea-noisettes, except Alister Stella Grey, want to grow big -- on the order of 15' - 20' -- so keeping them contained might be a chore. Hopefully someone experienced with other kinds of roses that are also heat/sun resistant will be weighing in.

This post was edited by catspa on Tue, Mar 25, 14 at 11:09

Welcome to the forum, Marion. I'm afraid I had back luck with my Reve d'Or on a wall that wasn't even facing completely west and it died back a little more each year. I was told here that most roses would fry in that situation, and my bed was too narrow to build a supporting structure. I'm afraid it will be a bit of a gamble for almost any rose to do well there, climber or bush. I hope someone will prove me wrong and tell you it can be done, especially if the rose isn't actually attached to the wall.

Ingrid

Agree with Ingrid on Reve d'Or. My relatively young (3 years in ground) Reve d'Or already covers 12 horizontal feet of a sheltered, east-facing fence and is not particularly heat tolerant so far -- blossoms go by quickly in hot weather. Celine Forestier, a "smaller" one of the class, also doesn't do heat well -- leaves sunburn easily and flowers collapse when it gets really hot.

I had a Sombreuil that was trainable, not that massive (compared to others in the yard), and seemed quite heat tolerant (no longer here due to change of plans). It was on a pergola on the south side of the house. It's heat tolerance is rated "excellent" on HMF (2 votes) and I think there have been posts on the forum here about its heat tolerance. A nice if rather -- make that "extremely" -- thorny rose.

They do not have much fragrance, but china roses love heat and re-bloom continuously. Many of them get large enough to be trained as climbers. You might want to look at them on HMF. Check out Mutabilis, Cramoisi Superior, etc.

On April 12th the Historic Rose Garden at the Sacramento Historic City Cemetery will be having an open garden. They get hotter even than Livermore! If I were you I would definitely go to the Open Garden to see all of the roses which grow there and survive the 100+ summers - they have lots of chinas. Check out the climbers growing on the fence along the street. There will be lots of helpful people there who can answer your questions, and it is an amazingly beautiful garden.

Jackie

Catspa, It sounds like tea noisettes really like it here. I was at the SanJo Heritage Rose Garden last weekend. I checked out a huge Crepuscule on a row end there. This rose was occupying a space roughly the same size as the arbor I'm planning to build, but it looked like someone was fighting with it to keep it in bounds. It had scars on it from where someone had pruned out 3" diameter canes. I don't mind the rose sending canes down over the window during the growing season, but this was more than I am prepared to deal with. Are all tea noisettes as vigorous as this? Are Alister Stella Grey's canes a bit more pliable? Also, do your tea noisettes go deciduous, or do they keep their foliage all winter?

Ingrid, I'm sorry to hear that your Reve d'Or got cooked. I'm planning to tear out the sidewalk in the picture and build the arbor roughly 12' high, 10' wide and 4' deep, so the arbor and bed around it will be bigger than the existing bed and won't get reflected heat from the sidewalk. Also, the rose will be planted right on our graywater line, so it will get plenty of water.

I realize that it is still a gamble growing a rose in a situation like this, but I'm hard headed, and want to give it a try. I can live with the singed blossoms during the dog days of summer; after all, they look how I feel at that point in the year. I think that wall would be vastly improved by being covered with a rose. I have to try it before I give up and start fighting with a wisteria

Jackie,

The Cemetery open garden is on my calendar. I'm not sure I can make it as I have a two year old and a three month old and it might be a more of an outing than my traveling circus can handle.

I do get up to Sacramento pretty regularly, and I will pay special attention to the roses on the fence the next time I visit the garden. I love mutabilis; there is a beautiful one in the UC Davis Arboreturm; mine is teeny-tiny. Thanks for the suggestion.

A Sombreuil might be just the ticket, especially since my aunt is planning on digging one out of her garden in Santa Cruz, where it balls like crazy, and giving it to me. I was going to send it up into a cedar tree, but the arbor might be a much better spot for it since it is heat tolerant.

Marion, the plans you have to support this rose sound much more optimal than my situation where it was attached to the house wall. Sombreuil would probably look nice with the color of your house, as would Crepuscule or Reve d'Or. An extremely thorny climber would scare me off.

Please don't even joke about planting a wisteria. Once you have it, it's impossible to get rid of, and will eat your house and probably the neighbor's too. If you want to get rid of it you can't because it will always sprout again, even years later.

Reve d'or and Crepuscule for me weren't that hard to keep small because neither is viciously thorny. However, a Sombreuil that already has some size and is free is not to be sneezed at. Tea-noisettes will not lose their leaves if the temps don't go below freezing for any length of time. A long, hard freeze would probably make them lose their leaves. I'm guessing here since I've never had a long, hard freeze where I live and the last few winters haven't really been cold at all.

Ingrid

HiClover, if you do manage to make it over here to our Open Garden at the Sacramento Old City Cemetery, please feel free to ask any of us (the volunteers) any questions you have. Some of us (like Anita and Judy) are more knowledgeable than others (like me), but we're all willing. I'll be on duty at the Rose Hotel (where people can leave the roses they've bought in safekeeping while they stroll around the garden). Also, there are several guided tours.

If you find that you can't make it for the Open Garden, but are visiting Sacramento on some other day, please come and browse around. The cemetery is open every day except for Wednesday and Thursday, and we volunteers are here on Tuesday and Saturday mornings.

Welcome to the forum!
Laura

Sort of off the main topic

But have any of you thought about a way to reduce some of that reflected heat off the wall if you have space between i and the roses?

I have about 4-5 feet between my west facing wall and the rose bed and it still feels like a blast oven out there. I did plant a row of fruit trees where they can shade the bed once they grown enough (lower terrace than the roses on a slope)

But I am thinking of planting something like a bougainvillea in a root proof pot (do they make such a thing) and wrapping in on a post to reduce that heat. anyone try something like that?

Tea-noisettes really do seem to like Livermore, Marion, and Alister Stella Gray, like the rest, is fairly flexible and trainable. In general they are vigorous to an extent that's sometimes daunting and something of a pain, though a couple of them (Celine Forestier, Vintage's Alister Stella Gray) have been more restrained than the others in my garden. They do maintain their leaves to some extent here over winter, though by winter's end the leaves are usually sparse and scruffy-looking, like those on the teas.

Sombreuil is a rose I liked and would grow again if, by some miracle, I had space for it again.