That's been my observation, too. Add Rugosas, which are remontant but also pre-1820 and the Musk Rose. And many of my Hybrid Musks are pretty blackspot free. It would be interesting to look at the parentage of those to see if the ones that do get it have a stronger china influence.

How do the "Original Four" Chinas do? I can only see Old Blush from my window as I write. It isn't as bad as most of my HPs, Austins, HTs, etc. Is one of them better or worse than the others? Do Chinas in China get BS?

I've searching for more info on the origins of BS. One reference said it came in with R.foetida, the Persian Yellow. I have come across this before. But R. foetida was introduced in 1900 when Ducher used it for Soliel d'Or.

Here many old roses like most damasks and centifolias are very BS succeptable. There are exceptions, of course ,like Ispahan that stay healthy. Mosses and Albas are a mixed bag. There are some really healthy (really old ones) like Semiplena , Maxima, etc and there are some that get a lot of BS and defoliate, like Chloris, Mme Legras..., Blanche de Belgique. There are also some in between that get BS but still keep some leaves or even stay clean some years. Gallicas are also a mixed bag, but with high percent healthy varieties. Still there are some like Gloire de France that defoliate as fast as any HT.
Catsrose, Hybrid Misks with the exception of Darlows Enigma are not resistant here at all. Especially Lavender lassie and Felicia are complete disaster.
Portlands are very prone to brown crud here, which can be a form of BS. Jacques Cartier can loose more then half its leaves to BS and Rose de Rescht can fully defoliate or just look ugly covered with brown leaves.
It is all very climate specific, I think it is hard to draw any universal conclusions. Many repeat blooming roses like Chinas and Teas are healthy in southern areas. Here they are not more healthy then modern roses.

Olga

My experience is very like Olgas....especially in the Centifolias which I can pick out of the Gallica border just by the spotty leaves. Repeating Damasks generally get Brown Crud-(you can see it in the repeating Mosses)..though Jacques Cartier is an exception in the Portlands. I dont seem to have as much problem with my albas except for maybe Armide which is very Damask like to me.

patricia

Isn't it interesting that when you grow Chinas and Teas outside of their hot comfort zone they get BS? And probably the northern roses down here would look poorly also and wouldn't bloom for sure. Pushing zones sometimes isn't worth it. And I really didn't appreciate Katherine Swift blaming BS on Chinas :(( That's not something I've ever heard, but my hearing is quite limited. Of course, Chinas do defoliate in my garden a lot - except for Louis Philippe. Maybe that will improve with maturity. Keeping my fingers crossed anyway.

And Hybrid Musks get ugly here.

Sherry

All my albas stay disease-free. My gallicas do get black spot. As do centifolia, bourbon, damask.

There is a great deal of mythology surrounding the origin of Blackspot, and many of the myths are quoted again and again, year after year. While its true that the first Hybrid Foetida, 'Soleil d'Or' has appalling problems with the disease, one has to remember that its other parent was a Hybrid Perpetual; a group notorious for its own disease problems. Surely both sides of the pedigree contributed to the problem. Certainly, the introduction of the China genes didn't help at all, but neither are they completely to blame.

Blackspot resistance (and the lack thereof) is a complicated matter. You can cross two disease prone roses and get a seedling that has complete immunity to disease. You can also take two native species roses and although both may be completely impervious to Blackspot, the resulting hybrids may have no disease resistance whatsoever. The moment you cross any plant with another individual not from its own species, you risk losing disease resistance. And since our modern garden shrubs are such mongrels, and since so very little attention was paid to disease resistance, especially in the 20th century when breeders figured the modern miracle of "better living through chemistry" would cure any disease problems, they selected what looked good and left disease management up to the end user. Lucky us.

Lets hope what Bill Radler and Robert Basye started is only the beginning of a new approach to breeding ornamental roses.

I have experienced mostly what Olga says. BS resistance/ susceptibility seems to change with climate, growing conditions, region as well as class/variety of rose. Lately, I've had good luck with two of Kordes Fairy Tale series, but one specific cultivar is a disaster in a New Jersey garden while just a few miles away in my garden is squeeky clean. My conditions mirror Olga's to the south west of me,but there are exceptions. So, I don't think we can praise one class or even just once bloomers for being disease resistant. Even the best disease resistant rose can have a bad year and worst one a good year. It really is an "educated" crap shoot as far as I'm concerned.

Just my humble opinion.

Barbara

The only rose I have that doesn't seem to get BS is Morden Blush 5 ft away French Lace is bare next to it Eglantyne a mixed bag some years yes some no. Glauca and Carmenetta almost never LaFrance always gets it as does Catherine Guillot and any of my Bourbons. Curiously Don Juan hasn't had it in 5 years and it used to always have it.

Here in black spot hell even the much vaulted KNOCKOUT gets black spot. Yes even Knockout. The only rose that I've ever seen that was completely clean in this urban jungle was a particularly spectacular specimen of Rosa rugosa alba growing in front of a Cleveland Park townhouse. You want repeat? Then you'd better spray. I also don't like how the author lays the blame on the Chinas. CRAMOISI SUPERIEUR (China, 1832) is one of the more resistant roses in my mom's no spray garden.

Disease resistance is regional. It is also extremely complicated. The article is overly simplistic, and inaccurate.

Gardening in England might as well be gardening on the Moon. At least that's how English garden books should be viewed by Americans outside New England and the Pacific Northwest.

Even in the Nineteenth Century, people were noting that roses which sulked in England's climate thrived once transported to Virginia and South Carolina. The roses of the world, like the peoples of the world, evolved for certain ranges of climatic conditions. And a species rose outside its natural range is going to be diseased. With hybrids, sometimes it takes a few decades to determine what the acceptable range is. Who would have thought that Austin's roses would happily morph into monsters in the Deep South?

Roses from China do wonderfully well, here in Mississippi. But I'm learning that one cannot generalize about roses that have come into being via complex lines of hybridization. You have to know the specific cultivar, and have to research where it's grown well. There is no other way.