You have my sympathies with RRD! Been there. (Actually, more accurately: being there right now...) #1. I recently had to find the answer to question #1 for myself. The answer I received indicated that 99.99% of the time, one year is long enough to wait for replanting in the same spot as far as coming down with RRD again goes, because if the infected rose is going to regenerate from its infected roots, it will almost surely do so within a year. If it does regenerate from its infected roots, of course, any mites in the area would have the capability of passing the infection to the newly planted rose. You don't necessarily have to wait a year, but you are taking a greater risk if you don't wait that long. I'm going to wait a year. #2. I'm not sure about the answer to #2, except that I know the answer is unrelated to Rose Rosette Disease. The potential reason to avoid using the same hole would be a concern for Rose Replant Disease, which sometimes (or maybe even frequently) does occur in England. I don't know whether it happens on this continent or not, or if it does happen whether it happens frequently enough to worry about. If it were actually sometimes a problem here too, two years would be long enough to wait on replanting in the very same hole. But along a fence, you probably could just easily move the new hole over a bit anyway, right? #3. My Cornelia Hybrid Musk, before succumbing to RRD, liked to throw out extremly long canes that were beautifully flexible and had a zillion little stems with buds on them. So I think Cornelia would be nice on a fence, and it's as beautiful a rose as you can imagine. It's also likely to have fewer disease issues than Golden Showers for most people. (However, it appears that you were quite lucky with Golden Showers there, so maybe you might want to think "Don't fix what ain't broke!") Lots of Hybrid Musks might work. Some: Wilhelm, Prosperity, Bubble Bath, Lavender Lassie. Some other possibilities (that I don't have experience with, but have seen recommended by others): Felix Leclerc, Soaring Spirits, Goldfinch, Rosarium Uetersen (Seminole Wind), Abraham Darby. I do have (a new) Climbing Iceberg and that might work well for you, even though it can get blackspot. New Dawn is supposed to be easy to grow, though it does have more thorns than some other choices. Mortimer Sackler ought to work well, as long as you don't count on too much distance (lovely, fragrant, low thorns, healthy). I'll enclose the link to Help Me Find's website so you can search on whatever varieties you might be interested in. Best wishes, Mary Here is a link that might be useful: HelpMeFind rose search

Ms. Lee, I'm sorry to be a stick in the mud, but I recommend a change of plan. From your altitude, location and description, I think large climbing roses are going to have a very hard time getting very far up either of those structures. I'm in 5B Fort Collins, and I have 4 New Dawn, mentioned above by Domino, which are now 6 or 7 years old. At best they've been only half cane hardy, staying alive 3 or 4 feet up from the ground (when covered) and most years, pretty well dying to the ground. Before that I had Don Juan on this small pergola, which was totally hopeless. I haven't given up. This winter I've covered the entire pergola (about 5x4 x 7 foot tall) with plastic and I've put one of those pipe freeze heater cables in there with the roses. The pipe heater only turns on when temp drops below 35F. There are some of those really hearty roses, but they're not that pretty, slow growing, and they're not re-blooming. Maybe there's a variety out there somewhere that can withstand winters here that is still pretty and blooms through the summer, and gets big enough to cover a medium size pergola. Maybe I'll figure out which variety that is over the next decade or two. But I'm not going to get my hopes up. Zone 5 in Wisconsin is a TOTALLY different story than Zone 5 here in Colorado. It's the extremely dry air, bright hot winter sunshine, and dramatic temperature fluctuations throughout our winters that desiccate the rose stems. I know I'm going to get pelted for this, because it's moderately invasive, but my recommendation is that you plant a couple of Virginia Creepers toward the back of your large pergola. These guys will fairly well cover the pergola in 4 or 5 years. It's very hardy, and has little miniature grape like fruit that hangs down, and looks nice. It also has nice red color in the fall. At the front of the pergola either don't have anything at all on those front 2 columns, or maybe put some medium size trellises there and plant some of the larger size clematis there, or maybe instead plant some honeysuckle. Then maybe put some regular (not climbing) roses in front of that, or nearby. For your pergola over the pond, I think I'd put honeysuckle on two of the corners and large clematis on the other two. This one is small enough, a really hearty grape vine might be able to cover it, (maybe valiant) but since there's a pond under it, that would make it rather tricky to pick the grapes! Good luck, Bruce

A little late to the conversation, and I don't know what your soil is like, Lesli, but you might find alfalfa to be a lot cheaper in your area sold as horse feed. I'm not sure I would go to the trouble of making it into a tea -- from your description, your soil might appreciate it as a compost amendment. You could also look into digging in some green sand which might cover a lot of your micronutrient needs if the plants look a little anemic. And of course, Epsom Salts are very cheap at any drug store, for the nominal amount you might require, if magnesium is an issue. I wouldn't think a little epsom salt could hurt, as long as you don't overdo it. *Some* amendments can set you back more than the darned roses did in the first place! Ben's garden is absolutely spectacular -- probably the most spectacular I've seen in our region -- but you probably don't need to be quite so feeding-happy to have a happy garden. (You are likely to end up with proliferation in some of your blooms, and might have to beat back some of your plants if you get *too* crazy with the feedings! LOL.) Cutting peaches *before* handling Milorganite was probably a good call, BTW. ;-) (Ben, do you lay off your feeding regimen when the summer heat comes, or do you have to water your plants heavily to keep them humming along? I have historically tended to encourage my plants to rest to avoid stressing them too much in summer, but I also try not to irrigate more than I absolutely have to.)

Deborah....your garden is so beautiful.....what a setting! I am not on the CA coast, but I thought I would chime in as I grow Polka. It's been in my garden since 2017, so three years now. This is one of my favourite climbers out of the many I grow. Firstly, it's very vigorous. It's planted in the hottest, driest, poorest soil part of my garden and it took off like gangbusters from day one. Mine was a grafted plant. It throws big canes from the base and they are somewhat stiff and very thorny. I have mine bent around a teepee and I have to get in their a few times a year and tie it down. I'm growing it in a formal rose garden....I think it would do better in a spot where it could get bigger. If I had a pergola to cover, this would be the perfect rose! The foliage is a light green color and very healthy...extremely healthy in my garden. Now let's talk about the flowers...my favourite part!! Polka is an apricot rose, not orange. It doesn't have any pink tones in it, just pure apricot. I love love love these flowers! And, it flowers continually for me. There are always beautiful blooms to pick all season long. It has a wonderful scent too. The flowers last very well in a vase, and they are very large and fluffy and somewhat ruffled. They are soooo grorgeous! Here are some pictures. Let me know if there's anything else I can tell you about this beautiful rose. Here you can see how the color compares to other roses...the Polkas are the three blooms in the very front (the middle one is squished). This is the only picture I have of the whole plant....it's planted at the back of the border. It's the rose on the middle teepee on the left hand side of the picture, the rose that's the tallest.