No, I don't know anything about the white one. Never even heard of it before. But I did use to grow the regular one. It was a perfect bush. Wish all roses could be that healthy and nicely shaped. Yes, her blooms lasted a nano-second, but they looked nice and had large petals. I had to remove her long ago because she quickly outgrew the limited space I had for her ... way back then I didn't know you couldn't trust the sizes stated by the vendors when you live in the south. I still grow a smaller sized descendant of Carefree Beauty ... 'Thomas Affleck', hybridized by the Michael Shoup organization at The Antique Rose Emporium. Carefree Beauty was a good momma, imparting much of her toughness to her offspring. Randy

Blackspot is not airborne to any significant extent. It carries over mainly within the bark of canes and to a lesser extent in fallen leaves (Compendium of Rose Diseases). Landscape cloth would have no effect on disease, but I think every experienced gardener here would say it is useless and troublesome in the long run. Mulch rots on top and the resulting soil supports weed growth. 'Carefree Beauty' is BS-resistant in many gardens, but apparently you have a race of BS that affects it. Frankly, your choices are to live with it, try a different variety of rose, or spray fungicide every two or three weeks.

I have both Sweet Fragrance and Carefree Celebration (which is in the same peach-coral color scheme) in the same bed. I gave away a Carefree Beauty I was sent by mistake for the Carefree Celebration, but I think its growth habits are similar to CB but CB is more pink than peach. I love love love Sweet Fragrance! It has everything I'm looking for in a landscape rose except for, ironically, fragrance. The color stays this nice luminous apricot without much fading, it blooms pretty much nonstop, it's effortlessly hardy in my zone 4 pocket and usually cane hardy, it bushes out nicely all the way up to its height (probably 4-5 feet on an average year), it never blackspots or otherwise gets disease at least for me, and it blooms along the height of the bush if you prune that way rather than lollipops at the top of big sticks. I find the color plays nicely with others, but is still noticeable from the street, which is important for a landscape rose. Here's a photo of SF with friends in an average rose year: This photo shows a spent bloom off to the left, as well as a fat and happy bumblebee enjoying the SF pollen. I don't find this dead bloom as noticeable at a distance as the Carefree Beauty faded blooms below, and SF drops its petals cleanly (though you still need to pop of what's left) whereas CB can hang onto those dead petals an awfully long time. In contrast, Carefree Celebration (and I'm going to presume Carefree Beauty) is equally hardy and blackspot free. I don't get appreciable rust or mildew so I can't comment on that for either rose. The color is a somewhat darker coral peach when it first opens but the color fades, sometimes dramatically to be 2-tones of apricot and parchment beige in neighboring blooms. It doesn't bloom as often or as thickly as Sweet Fragrance, and it's probably shorter even in a good year staying 3-4' (too bad I put mine behind the SF). I'd move them around, but I find the dramatic color fade annoying enough that I'm glad it's a bit disguised till I get around to deadheading. Here's a full bush shot when it's reasonably happy and tidy: Here's that parchment looking effect starting on the petals long before I'd normally call them dead and nip them off: Here are Sweet Fragrance and Carefree Celebration next to each other for contrast. The lovely big fluffy bright peach blooms at the center top are Sweet Fragrance - notice how consistent they look? Now the runty half-faded blooms off to the left are Carefree Celebration - this photo has the parchment look going big time. I don't mind it in a garden setting, but I think as a landscape rose you'd notice it looking half dead when it really only needs deadheading, and you'd lose the benefit of the "low care" landscape rose. Don't get me wrong, I like Carefree Celebration and I think Carefree Beauty is a good rose for that context - I don't know if some of these limitations apply to CB, though I think the blooms are on the smallish size. It's just that Sweet Fragrance beats it hands down in my yard. Sweet Fragrance is probably in my top 10, or at least top 20 roses, while Carefree Celebration might not make the top 100 (remember I have around 1000 roses, so it's still relatively good). The main down side I could see of Sweet Fragrance in a landscape might be its height if it gets beaten down by winds or other effects, since it would probably get to 6' in your zone. Just my two cents! Cynthia

Thank you, wirosarian, jim1961, and farmerduck! I think it might indeed be 'Carefree Wonder'. I am told it is older than 1990, but passed-on information is not always reliable. It is about as 'Carefree' as it can be--foliage as clean as can be, and bloom-bloom-bloom, rooted it from a cutting.