Go visit Connie at Hartwood Roses in Fredericksburg: www.hartwoodroses.com
She's fun, incredibly knowledgeable and has a huge garden of roses so you can see what you're getting.
You might also want to visit Roses Unlimited in SC.

If you like old roses, you might want to look at all of the gardens in Colonial Williamsburg. They keep the plants to those which would have been grown in or before the 18th century, but as I recall there were some roses, and if they are growing there my bet is that they would do well without spraying. You might find some you like.

Jackie

I'm West of you near Charlottesville just East of the Blue Ridge, 5 degrees colder between our zones. My garden is sited in a clearing of mixed woodlands & the soil is fairly rich clay loam. What's your soil? We're having an unusually hard Winter this year, for sure. Lots of freeze & thaw spells routinely over a more typical season, so grafts need to be at least a couple of inches below the soil surface. Find own root roses cope more easily with the weather here. Winter mulching is important to help modulate the surface soil temp.

The major challenge is wild temperature swings - 70 last Sunday & a chilling 1 Monday night - and ice storms, which you probably didn't have to deal with in a more Southern clime. With high humidity you're already familiar, and likely the blackspot pressure that accompanies it. Seems the main adjustment would be selecting roses for their cold hardiness, which may not have been a criterion before. Like to choose those rated no higher than Zone 6, having lost a few roses rated less hardy to prolonged cold over the years...

Garden organically & no spray, so roses must be very blackspot resistant to survive & thrive. Basically a shrubbery when we moved in, been working to make this a mixed perennial garden including roses. The soil near the house was a construction trash mess & needed thorough overhaul. The native soil here being high in clay cannot be walked upon when it's wet or compresses. With nearly 70" of average rain & snowfall, the earth is often damp. Stepping stones laid unobtrusively in the beds allow tending & a half sheet of exterior plywood cut into 2 foot squares work as temporary standing platforms on bare soil when creating new beds.

What type of roses do you want to grow? The 30-40 roses growing here are a mixed bag, with the oldest Ballerina from the 30's, so no traditional OGR's. Jaune Desprez succumbed to a long hard Winter, although a Yellow Lady Bank's cutting I planted in a friend's garden has done beautifully for years. A few Austin's have made the grade, including Abe Darby, Golden Celebration & The Endeavor.

Connie at Hartwood quit selling roses a few months after I first heard of her, to my deep regret. She's opening the garden twice this Spring & would love to visit there, too. Welcome to VA!

Here is a link that might be useful: Hartwood Roses

Thank you, everyone. I know about Hartwood Roses. Love her site and am sad that I cannot buy roses from her anymore. :( Actually I am planning to go to the Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond later this month and help out. Connie asked me about it (via Facebook) and I think I am all clear to go. It will be my first "rose activity" ever and I hope to meet Connie there :) I want to visit the colonial gardens here in town, but not much to see until spring. I had at least 30 different kinds at my old home -- mostly heirlooms -- noisettes, shrubs, chinas, species mostly. I plan to use organic methods and spray little. I only used Neem oil in Mississippi and not very frequently. We are in process of buying a permanent home here -- should close middle of this month -- but are in a rental currently. The new place has 15 acres and has never, as far as I can tell, had much of a garden. Some areas are poorly drained, but other spots are not. I have a small plot at our church gardens where I plan to put any baby roses I buy this spring.

I'm up in the northern foothills, which may be just different enough from the tidewater to not be helpful.

But I did want to say that I went to school in Richmond and Hollywood Cemetary is amazing! It's one of my very favorite places in the city- take a camera and leave extra time to wander!

Also, is anyone is the region planning on going to Hartwood's open days? I am going to aim to attend on May 26 and would love to meet some of you!

Oh, Eeeeekkkkk .... those are LAST year's Hartwood open garden dates on the front page of my web site. Shows how much attention I have paid to that site in the past year. Sorry folks. This year's dates posted soonest, I promise.

For local rose events, please put May 31 onto your calendar. That is the date of the Rose Open House at Monticello's Tufton Farm. The gardens should be in full, wonderful bloom at that time ... with a spectacular collection of OGRs in the main garden and Noisettes and related roses in the Leonie Bell Noisette Garden. I am this year's speaker, talking about easy care heirloom roses for Virginia gardens ... a very timely topic. :)

Gotta be a good girl now and go back to final preparations for Hollywood's Rose Day on Saturday.