Wow, I've culled out some of them and now I've got more to contemplate. Thank you, I'M NOT COMPLAINING HERE :).... At this time of year for my area, is it better to 1/ get it as a potted rose since bare root season here has come and gone OR...2/Order it as a bareroot? Assuming I can get EXACTLY what I want potted up (but maybe that is not possible, I don't know enuf at the moment how the rose industry works). QUESTION: I just got D.Austin's catalog in the mail (swoon)but after reading some other posts etc. I'm not sure about them,,,I noticed that every description says "repeat bloomer" and I'm finding posts that contradict their catalog so I'm relaying on you "my friends" for tried and true climbers for my area and have been rewarded by your wonderful info and suggestions for specific roses to meet my needs. Since I really want a repeat bloomer, as I enjoy being out in my yard year round, is it more of a grower thing, as to how well they have propagated their roses to repeat bloom or just the genetics of that rose, that determines how well it repeat blooms, or is it a location thing of where you plant the rose? I know, I drive my own self crazy, being a 'thinker' personality isn't always a plus. Leads one to ask the 'WHO IS A CREDIBLE/exceptional GROWER' question? Should one go with overall info on that particular rose (to make final decisions) or rely on how that one particular grower has developed their particular rose and pick that way? I'd like to avoid paying huge amounts for shipping but paying extra for a really good rose now, is money well spent in enjoying the rose in the future.

When I checked the Roses Forum under "protect while spraying" I found these info: "From Henry Kuska, grower of over 1,000 roses from Ohio: Title: Combined exposure to endocrine disrupting pesticides impairs parturition, causes pup mortality and affects sexual differentiation in rats. Another one from Henry: "Retinal degeneration was two times more common in applicators who had used fungicides. Results were similar in North Carolina and Iowa." More from Henry: "It appears that the "hot U.S. fungicide spray of the month" is Bayer Advanced Disease Control for Roses - This is a tebuconazole based fungicide. It is being phased out in Europe, banned in the state of New York, and not available for garden use in Canada. The concern is especially directed towards fetuses and infants as they are particular susceptible to endocrine disrupting substances." I posted a thread entitled "Pics of fungal growth, corn meal, and Austin roses" in the Rose Forum detailing how I dusted my corn meal. Refined corn meal from Walmart did not work, throwing at the base of the bush did not work. Someone posted a good question "if corn meal is a good fungicide, would it harm the beneficial Mycorrhizal fungi?" For that reason I kept the corn meal on the leaves, rather than in the ground. For fungi control in the ground, I posted a thread "Suppression of pathogens and pests by soil bacteria" in the rose forum. It detailed how black spot fungi is suppressed by normal soil bacteria plus flora in horse manure. In contrast, mulching with tree bark in a wet climate encourages black spots, with 25 different varieties of fungi in decayed wood, particularly artillery fungus, or shotgun fungus. Since WHOLE-GRAIN corn meal works best with the fat in the germ layer, I used a flour sifter to dust the lower 1/3 of the bush. I dusted August 1, September 1, September 17 (after 20+ hours of rain), and again in September in the midst of 5 days of rain. Only 4 dusting to get zero black spots on 10 Austins. Our first frost is soon to come in October, they keep all their leaves. The feed store doesn't sell corn meal, only cracked corn $5 for a giant bag (enough for a decade!). I used Nutrimill flour grinder to grind to dust. You can buy Arrowhead Mills or Bob's Mill whole-grain corn meal at the grocery store for $2 to $3 per bag. Health food stores have it.

I have about 200 roses, a mix of OGRs and modern roses. While recently, hybridizers have worked harder at breeding disease resistance into roses, most modern roses require protection regular protection from BS and occasional protection from other fungus diseases. A lot of the OGRs, however, will florish with little or no spray. I will vote wholeheartedly on the side of good health, good soil making a difference. I would like to add that a good clone of the plant makes a hugh difference also. I can vouch for Red Cascade (my husband's favorite rose - just don't plant it by the front door), Marie Pavie, Gruss an Aachen, Lynnie (Ashdown), Carefree Sunshine (by the hybidizers of Knockout--absolutely the cleanest rose I have ever seen, doesn't even get the fall crude as Knockouts sometimes do), Souv. de un Ami, Clementina Carbonieri, Maggie, Comtessa de Cayla, the Buck, Prairie Squire (big shrub), the climbers, New Dawn and Awakening (a sport of New Dawn). Some roses that do well with minimu spraying are Hot Cocoa, Gourmet Popcorn, most of the Buck roses, The English Miss, Belinda's Dream, Playgirl and Playboy, Mellow Yellow. In my garden, the teas tend to be robust and carefree. The Buck roses are robust and need very little care. Based on that general experience, I keep adding them to my garden. I've found one or two specimens that didn't measure up, but exploring the tea list and Buck list from RosesUnlimitedOwnRoot and Ashdown Roses is a great way to have fun, grow fragrant easy care roses and become obsessed for life.

LIV - I'm in zone 5 too and I have a lot of climbers, so you're right to ask for advice before you get too far in your plans and work too hard. We want you to enjoy your roses rather than get disappointed in your first planting, so that's why we're being discouraging about your original plan and encouraging other roses or combinations of where to plant what you have and what you could have. You can plant these NDs but I really wouldn't recommend in front of the house. You could probably prune very hard each year and keep New Dawn a modest size, but odds are you'd also be cutting off most of your chances for rebloom or even a first bloom if you're trying to rein it in. Roses tend to bloom best at their preferred size, and climbers are particularly notorious for not wanting to bloom much until they've spent some time at their height where they want to bloom. That's why we in cold zones want to plant tip-hardy roses that keep their canes after the winter so they can keep growing taller and putting out more laterals. Any climbers will bloom better if you can tie the initial canes horizontally to allow them to put out canes growing up off that sideways cane (we call these laterals). If you don't want a couple of "powder puff" blooms on the end of a tall narrow climber, that's the kind of treatment you want to do for the rose. The narrow width of your trellis doesn't really allow much room for the canes to be bent sideways and as others have said if ND is happy in this spot it will actively and aggressively pull it off your house and attack you and your neighbors when they come to the door. So here's your dilemma if you try to leave the NDs in the front of the house where you have them: scenario 1 - like mine your NDs will not grow beyond knee high in 3-4 years and never bloom, eventually dying, so you're disappointed scenario 2 - your NDs are happy with this spot in front of your house and grow to the size of anything like Oakley's or Daisy's, totally outgrowing this space and making you and your neighbors unhappy scenario 3 - you vigorously and constantly prune back a happy ND to the point where it is now unhappy and puts out only leaves with no blooms I'd opt for scenario 4, where you put them to the sides of your house where they can expand to their heart's content if they're happy, or they won't wreck your vision for the front of the house if you're unhappy. There's a circle off to the left of the original photo that could probably rein in one of the NDs, and there's (unnecessary?) grass beyond that on the side of the house that you really didn't want to mow, did you (smile)? You asked about the type of support that can hold a happy ND in our zones, and my suggestion would be something like the 8'x6' arch where I have a vigorous and aggressively happy Quadra (yes, that's all one rose): If you find that after putting the NDs under an arch like this at the side of your house you end up with scenario 1 and the scrawny runts look ridiculous under the arch, that now becomes an excuse to buy more roses (something we all can help you do with glee). You won't know however if you have a happy ND for about 4 years, since that's how long it takes climbers to mature so be patient and let the set down roots for a while. Moving the roses now when you've just planted them won't set them back particularly but moving them next spring or the next when they start to overgrow their space may delay them maturing even longer What I'd recommend is not putting a rose on the trellises next to the front door. Those are ideal spots for the Jackmanii clematis and that's a vigorous enough clematis to more than fill those trellis spots. Here's what Jackmanii can do if you let it spread out to its heart's content - this is the purple spread out all along the back side of a maybe 10' square cage for my blueberries (again this is one clematis plant): You can contain Jackmanii more narrowly on your trellises but be prepared for a lot of foliage to rein in and encourage on the trellis. This is a different purple clem on the double shepherd's hook (swamped) plus a truly thuggish pink Princess Diana clem attacking a rose on the right. So, if you put the clematis on the trellises by the door, and ND to the side or sides of your house, you now have trellises that are open on the far ends of your house. If you want a rose there, you want something that will naturally stay narrow. Embothrium's suggestion of Aloha is a great one, and mine is cane hardy for me in zone 5. It stays no wider than about 3' if it has something to climb or lean on, and I can get away with loosely attaching mine to another shepherd's hook rather than a trellis, but it would prefer something like a trellis I'm sure. Do be aware that roses need to be attached (like with pantyhose strips or those green velcro plant holds) as opposed to clematis that attach themselves to things. Here's Aloha fairly early in the summer before she has put out a lot of laterals - you can see I hooked her under the support and she's just now starting to bloom off the sides that are facing vertical. She'll pretty much hide the hook by the end of the season, but you can tell that she's relatively happy being tall and narrow. Other hardy roses with similar narrow growth habits include Poseidon (a lavender) or Queen of Sweden (pink fluffy blooms) - neither of these are really climbers but they'll get to 6' or so in our zone and can either be attached to the trellis or climb in front of it. You'd have the option of putting the clematis on these side trellis panels too and then the tall narrow rose in front, and letting some of the tendrils of the clematis twine around the rose for the effect. Jackmanii is a vigorous enough clem to overwhelm a whole lot of climbing roses in our zones, so this might keep yours from being swamped. You can see in the clem photo previously that Scepter'd Isle (another relatively narrow growing rose) is totally being pulled off its usual 6' height by the clem and it's bending down to the height of the 3' A/C unit. The Canadian roses (like Quadra) could handle Jackmanii, but I don't know of any that climb that will stay narrow or mannerly enough for the spaces you have. You might not be able to find the roses we discuss at average nurseries or other stores around town, but there are several nice Canadian mail order nurseries that would sell you these roses at $20 or so, which is quite reasonable and they have great quality plants with more choices. You'd want to wait till spring to plant these though, since it's not an ideal time to plant roses to have them put down a good root system. You're of course free to plant what you want where you want it and if you're happy it's not a wrong choice, but we're sharing some advice to help you avoid frustration if possible. Cynthia