Gotta say that Zepherine Drouin is my all time favorite workhorse. It looks kinda like Gertrude, so depending on what the complaints were?....

I grew Gertie as a climber she was lovely. Wicked thorny as all get out but lovely just the same. She definitely needed spraying here. Rebloom was so so. A good show in the Spring a few sporadic blooms through out summer and a fair bloom in the fall. I'll sift thru my pics see if I can find one for you.

Annie

Here you go Gertrude on my leaning $10 arbor lol
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Annie - WOW!! That photo may have just made my decision for me. I saw GJ a few years back in full bloom at a garden center, didn't buy it and regretted it ever since. I swore if I ever saw it again locally, I would just buy it immediately - no deliberation. It just really took my breath away. Not just the incredible fragrance, but the clarity and intensity of that perfect pink. I've read so many complain that it should be pegged instead of climbing. But yours looks very vertical. Any insight on this? Did you do anything special with it? I guess any rebloom is good enough for me, and I don't usually spray, but for a special plant...
Thanks so much for taking the time to dig up that beautiful photo.

Poodle - I have two ZDs, and I absolutely adore the blooms when they occur. I do have more trouble with this rose than my other bourbons, though, and I haven't really figured out why. In general, bourbons have been slow to settle in for me, but when they do, they are the very best on so many counts. My Zeffies do not put on a spectacular spring flush. Just a few isolated blooms. I don't get it. Hopefully they will outgrow this. I have a Louise Odier and a Mme. Ernest Calvat that I almost sp'd in the first couple of years, they were so poor, but now they are amazing. They are pegged, though, so maybe that helps. The Zeffies are not.
Thanks for the input.
- robin

Wish my Gertie looked like anniesbriars' picture above. I've had Gertie nearly 10 years and never had that many blooms--regardless whether I pegged it or pruned it.

I also grow Mortimer Sackler as a shrub, but I can see where it wouldn't mind becoming a climber. It is very bloom prolific (light pink), very disease resistant, good re-bloomer with good fragrance. Oh, and it has very few thorns. However, it doesn't quite look like the typical Austin we imagine with big cabbage-head blooms, etc. MS is a much more delicate looking shrub (although it is a tough shrub)--the blooms are perhaps smaller and more fragile looking that some Austin lovers might expect. There's kind of a wispy quality about its foliage also. Nice red on the new growth, by the way. I keep trimming it back so it will stay a shrub, but it would really prefer getting taller and taller--maybe up to 8 feet? I'm not sure.

I recommend it--as long as you aren't expecting a pink version of something like Golden Celebration.

Kate

You're so welcome glad you enjoyed seeing the pic. It basically made the decision to climb for me. It threw out long bendy climber like canes that I tied to the arch. When it was finished blooming I cut back the laterals to 3rd bud eyes to keep it tidy. Mine was grafted onto (ok I'm going to butcher the spelling here) fortuniana. Don't know if that was the difference in the way it performed. I've always wanted to try it own root to see if it did well that way. I may just have to do that now that I think of it.

Annie

Dublin - thanks for the input on Mortimer. I don't mind that it doesn't look like your typical Austin. I love the way it looks in the DA catalog - kind of more elegant and natural. If you have a pic, I would love to see it.
I think I will end up getting it one way or another. My daughter and I are crazy for what we see as "innocent" looking roses. This one seems to have that sort of sweetness.

Annie - Thanks for the management info. I don't know what rootstock mine is on. It is from J & P. The way mine is growing right now is very vertical, but I don't know how it is going to bloom - Easter freeze took all the buds. I think I'll keep it potted for a while to get to know it a little better before placing it.

James Galway is vigorous enough for a climber here. I grow 'Spirit of Freedom' and it has stayed put at about 5' high and not as disease resistant. Also, the blooms have a lot of petals and sometimes fail to open in some weather conditions.

I think GJ on fortuniana is a whole different ballgame from the GJ's on manetti or Dr. Huey.
Let me also chime in with praises of James Galway for being darned near bullet proof in not needing spray in my garden AND it makes blooms, tons and tons of blooms on a big, tall, vase shaped self supporting rose bush. Mine's from Pickering on multiflora.
I have also grown Lucetta which was an excellent climber with subtle but lovely pale pink blooms. She's gone only because I wanted more noisettes and have only so many arbors.

robiniaquest --wish I could supply a pic of Mortimer Sackler, but my digital camera was new last summer and I didn't get around to getting pics of all my roses. I need to be more conscientious about that. Sorry--but you'll love the rose.

Kate

Stop it Ann.
Talk like that will make me push the James Galway order button, and I'm trying to be good these days.

Randy

I just planted my James Galway today. It is a tall healthy shrub, blooms are lovely. I have high hopes for this one, and have read another thread with nothing but good to say about it.

Um, Randy, I am specifically NOT telling you that James Galway is opening blooms today, up in the air, the buds at a small stage having survived the three nights of temps around 18F at Easter (which was 30 days ago, so these aren't post freeze buds). And it's opening lots of buds. Likewise Anne Bolyn at its base is going to be a mass of blooms (I like her so much I planted a second one next to her to make an eight foot long wall of bloom, almost as wide as JG is at the top.

My POTTED James Galways have clamored over an arbor in two years and is full of buds/blooms, even AFTER the Big Easter Freeze of 2007. I can't recommend this rose enough. Gets a little BS in the late summer, but that's it. Didn't lose a leaf either winter I've had it. Gorgeous bloom--very full and blue-pink. Mild scent to me.

Barbara

Thanks everyone for the info. James Galway was one I really hadn't considered, primarily because it really looks like a warm pink with peachy tones in the pics on HMF. If it was sure to be a blue-pink I would go for it, but I'm a little afraid of those warm tones I'm seeing. Banders, is it always a blue-pink for you, or is it variable?

Right now, I'm leaning towards GJ and/or a nice bourbon after all. Mortimer has now jumped from the middle to the top of my short list, maybe for that spot, maybe for somewhere else. Dublin - don't worry - I am kind of frustrated with my digital camera. Not enough pixels for decent close-ups, and I cannot figure out how to post a pic. I'm just happy for a good report on Mortimer. It's so enchanting somehow.

Now that some of my bourbons are coming into bloom, I'm reconsidering them. Maybe mine have been slow to establish because they are own root. But they have been totally healthy and trouble-free. With the exception of my Zeffies, they have set tons of buds. Plus, their foliage is just so uniquely beautiful. Only the hybrid musks have comparably pretty foliage in my yard. Maybe they are worth the wait. I just ordered a gallon MIP from Rogue Valley the other day, and am probably going to order a band-size DDDR as well. I think one of those might look really nice with Gertie. Another thought is a deep dark red like Souvenir du Dr. Jamain with Gertie.

Oh - I should ask. Am I to assume my GJ is on Dr. Huey because it is from J and P? If so, what might that mean for it's use in the garden. I can tell you that Dr. Huey does really well here, judging from all the formerly HT specimens around here. I am always so surprised by how much bad press it gets because they are just one of the most spectacular sights of the early summer, IMO, around here. Some people have used them as climbers, but most are stunning arching shrubs. They will black sp Myot after bloom, but don't stay that way all summer.

Should I try to get one on fortuniana to get results like Annie's? Also - what rootstock does David Austin (US) use? My Austin Austins are new, but appear to be much stronger and healthier than my J and P one.

Well, Dr. Huey was once sold as a once blooming climbing red rose. And if you like it, fine.
I see Dr. Huey's blooms here (by the times the blooms are out Black Spot has taken the leaves) and see no other roses in the yards, and I see Dr. Huey as a killer of people's beliefs that they can buy a rose, have it bloom as they wanted and last for years in the color of their choice. And from my slant, that means Dr. Huey isn't leading to more people wanting to grow roses, but to fewer rose gardens and an uglier world in general. Stepping off of my slanted soapbox....

Both J&P and David Austin sell GJ on Dr. Huey.
And in your zone, fortuniana rootstock is unlikely to make a good long lived rose. Fort can handle my zone winters, but it doesn't stop growing at all, so it's continuing to push new growth through winter. When mine on fort make spring canes, I can get those canes through winter; but when fall and winter canes happen, they're dead come spring either from cold or canker or fungal problems.

robiniaquest--I'm Zone 6 Kansas--just 30 miles from your border--so maybe our situations are comparable. Dr. Huey rootstock does find in my area--that's what most of my roses probably are--partly out of ignorance since I started buying roses some years ago before I even suspected one could have a choice of rootstock. Main thing to remember is to plant the grafts a couple inches below the soil line. That way if there is winter die-back, the new growth is still likely to come from above the graft--which is what you want.

So far, I have never had Dr. Huey appear, so I don't think you need to worry.

Kate

I have seen Lucetta used as a climber in southern California gardens. The Huntington in Pasadena has a pair planted on either side of a walkway which grow as pillars. I've also seen a 12ft+ high Lucetta in a friend's garden. I've currently got a baby one started on an archway which is an ownroot and very healthy so far. It's very pretty, semi-double and nicely fragrant.