..."So you should ask yourself what you are ready to accept and then just try. Nobody will give you a guarantee, just see for yourself..." That last little bit of advice from Olga just might be the best advice of all. If you want perfect foliage, grow hollies (I do). And if you also REALLY like the look of a rose's plant habit, the bloom, the fragrance ... go for it. I held off on trying Souvenir de la Malmaison, Reine des Violettes, & Heritage way too long because of scary things some people say on this website about them. But they have become among my favorite roses and I will always grow them. Are they perfect? No. Are they beautiful & fragrant? Yes. I am realistic about blackspot in my no-spray garden. Incorporate well-foliaged, rose-friendly companion plants into the garden. I am tolerant of imperfection in others, in myself, in my life, and in my garden. Some will say I live in an area that has less blackspot pressure than where you live and that my comments are not relevant. But really, when it comes to disease resistance, and your tolerance for it, only you can decide by trial and error in your own garden as to what works and what doesn't. Be careful to not let others dictate what you can or can't do. Randy

Belinda's Dream is great for Texas, but in the northeast it gets more fungus disease, is of doubtful winter-hardiness, and suffers from rotting flowers in cool wet weather. I really like Mother of Pearl, which is peachy pink with a pleasant fragrance to my nose. It is very hardy and disease resistant. The cut flowers last longer than any rose I have grown. If you want super fragrance, the best bet would be The McCartney Rose. Disease resistant pale yellows with some fragrance are Irish Hope and Prairie Sunrise. All these are available from Roses Unlimited. Here is a link that might be useful: HMF Mother of Pearl

When I'm researching a rose, I generally take "disease-resistant" to mean resistant to BS and other diseases, unless the source specifies that, for instance, it is "suspectible to mildew" or something like that. Where I live, BS is the problem, so that is primarily what I'm looking for, but I don't want to invite a mildew magnet into my garden either. So far, my roses have performed pretty much like the descriptions said they would, but I always check multiple sources: the catalog description, HMF, this forum, Dave's forum, disease-resistant lists available a number of places online, etc. I like finding gardening blogs where real gardeners assess their own roses. I start with the nursery description, but I first check out how they rate some roses I already grow. If their descriptions vary considerably from my first-hand experience, then I take all their descriptions, including the new rose I'm looking for, with a grain of salt. Or I do some spot-checking to see if they list almost all roses as disease-resistant--in which case I know it is a lot of catalog hype. I like it best when the nursery catalog rarely makes disease-resistant claims--that way, when they really praise a rose for being so "healthy," I figure they might even actually mean it. In other words, learning how to "read" nursery catalog copy for what it really means is a learned skill (and I'm still working on it). I also check the descriptions at several nursery catalogs to see if there is any significant difference. However, if they all lift the same description from the same source, then I treat them all as just ONE source. At HMF, I also check the "comments" section to see if gardeners have included their own real-life experiences with that rose. For places like this forum, I do what most of the above posters do--pay more attention to posters from geographical areas/mini-climates close to my own. Since there aren't that many Kansas Zone 6 posters here, I take a more regional approach (Missouri and Oklahoma, for instance--I live fairly close to both) and look closely at their assessments. However, I don't rule out other assessments. Since I'm not looking for the ONE source that will answer my questions about disease and other matters, I can learn a lot from posters from other areas also. It becomes kind of a balancing act, weighing all the pros and cons based on zone, etc. Like Molineux, I find most California info won't help me at all since many there have no BS to speak of and that is a big question for me. On the other hand, I do not live in BS h*ll, so I don't give as much weight to a comment from a place that has high BS pressures (unless they claim the rose was healthy despite the BS pressures). Like anything else, some evidence is more telling. Weighing the worth of the evidence becomes a major part of the process. If all the sources disagree a lot, I rate the rose "questionable" and avoid it. Actually, I think researching the rose is part of the fun of rose gardening--especially in the early winter when I can't get into my garden. LOL. Kate

These might not be considered as minis in the strictest sense but I'll throw out a couple that work for me. One is Gourmet Popcorn. I have it planted in dry rocky soil that was somewhat amended and it is the rose that is on the edge of the bed nearest the woods. It gets only several hours of sun a day. It is clean and blooming right now and I'm hard pressed to remember when it isn't. Kind of a "plain vanilla" little white rose but I like "plain vanilla". It has very few thorns. Another is a Ping Lim rose called "Little Mischief". It reminds me in size and shape of a small polyantha. It's planted in a different bed but in a very similar situation. It blooms in cycles, covering itself with little red and white flowers. It's in full bloom now and, while not a show-stopper, is very attractive. I assume you know about Sweet Chariot. Mine is a little bigger than 2 x 2 but could still be planted in front of a larger rose. Mine is planted in front of rose de rescht and it's a very nice combo. I don't spray. I don't require my roses to be spotless but extreme defoliation means that it's a rose that can't stay here.