Gotta buncha folks here who are in your general area, Lisa.

And I'm sending you a Hello from Southern California.
:-)

Jeri

Welcome, Lisa. Let me direct you to another Lisa, the proprietor of Countryside Roses in Pass Christian, MS. Lisa's website is www.countrysideroses.com. She grows highly disease resistant (no spray) roses for the South. Take a look at her list, you may choose to order your roses from Chamblee's, ARE or Ashdown but vet your choices by Miss Lisa's list first, anything she grows would be great for you.

Hello, Lisa. Nice to have you here.
The one thing that you should remember when ordering old/antique roses is that a lot of them only bloom once. I have a Mme. Plantier and it blooms in the late sping only.
But on the other hand, they are a lot easier to grow than HTs. The Antique Rose Emporium has a very nice website when you are trying to choose and I have been very satisfied with the roses from them.

I am in east Texas but I would imagine these roses would do well for you. They are some of my favorites:
Crepuscule
La Marne
Skyrocket
Blush and Nachitoches Noisette
Sally Holmes
Old Blush - bush and climbing
Rosette de Lizy
Caldwell Pink
the Buck roses - love them all
Champlain
Eutin
Clotilde Soupert
Clair Matin
Mme. Alfred Carriere
Mrs. Pierre du Pont
There are so many - hard to list them all. These are blooming for me now and are gorgeous. Have fun!
Judith

old blush was planted in the garden about one century ago and none cared for it for decades. It's still there. So it is carefree, just give it a good exposition (sun).
I'd say the same of all china roses, many of them are continuously in bloom. Try mutabilis, one of my favourite.
Many gallica and damsk roses are carefree but once-bloomer.
Many rugosas, if you give them a location where they get the sun only for half a day.

Many antique roses are carefree: there were not today's chemical poisons to save the most fragile.

Some of my favorites and all easy care: Old Blush, Duchess de Brabant, Georgetown Tea, Le Vesuve, Carefree Beauty(Katy Road Pink), Monsieur Tillier, Mutabilis, Madame Antoine Rebe, Nachitoches Noisette, Perle d'Or, Red Smith's Parish, Mrs. B. R. Cant. Once these get established they will bloom for you continuously and are carefree for the most part. I think you can order most of these from The Antique Rose Emporium, Chamblees, Countryside Roses. Hope you enjoy your roses. Vicki

And Louis Philippe, Archduke Charles, Jean Bach Sisley, Reve d'Or, Spice, Maman Cochet, Mme Antoine Mari, Nur Mahal, and on and on.

Sherry

Many Southern roses get big so how much room you have might be an issue. I recommend you get Blush Noisette...its fragrant and blooms like mad and has a beautiful bush form. Mine is disease free and a big favorite among my non-rose growing friends.

Here is mine (top of waterfall)
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Fellenberg is immediately to the right of Blush Noisette.
Knock Outs on the left (planted on a rock shelf and virtually no soil)
Climbing Pinkie back right on the fence.

"old blush was planted in the garden about one century ago and none cared for it for decades. It's still there. So it is carefree, just give it a good exposition (sun)."
@scardan - had to read this a couple of times ;-) Thought you meant no one liked it, before I got that it didn't need care, hee, hee.

On another thought, I'm curious about D de Brabant. I almost got it this year but didn't because HMF made a mention of mildew susceptibility. What are people's experiences???

"On another thought, I'm curious about D de Brabant. I almost got it this year but didn't because HMF made a mention of mildew susceptibility. What are people's experiences???"

Mildew? The Duchesse? Really?

Last spring was really bad for mildew here- even my rugosas got a touch, fer Pete's sake- but the Duchesse just laughed at it.

DdB grown no-spray will get a little blackspot, but not enough to matter; she just drops the infected leaves and keeps on blooming.

In Southern California, both Duchesse de Brabant and Old Blush mildew.

It's not that they mildew some in the cool spring, but that they mildew at a low level all of the time.

OTOH, Old Blush is Grreat in Texas.

I'd also suggest Gloire des Rosomanes (Ragged Robin).

Jeri

You should also look tea roses, I live in NE Georgia and they do very well here. They are almost evergreen in my zone. They also can get quite large. I'm just starting out with them, so can't say yet how easy they are. But they do require less pruning and are more blackspot resistant than other roses I have.

Marie d'Orleans is doing very well in my yard. She is the tea I've had the longest so far.

Lisa, have you found Help Me Find, an on line data base of roses? You can look up all of those fabulous roses people have mentioned and also see where you can purchase them.

Please 'scuse me if you already know about this. I posted the link below to the entry for Madame Antoine Mari, a tea rose, on Help Me Find. I hope you enjoy old roses!

Here is a link that might be useful: Help Me Find - Madame Antoine Mari

I grow antique roses in downtown Atlanta without spraying. I have a lot of variety in an urban lot - I just keep them pruned to the size I need them - my front yard is small but it is crammed with antiques. I also grow some small polynathas so that I can tuck more roses into small places!! Many of the roses I grow are listed in Countryside. It's hard to find "Jean's No Spray List" on GW anymore - but this is a list I found here and use regularly. Jean who lives in TN posted the list and it was a very good guide.