Congratulations on the new house! The easy answer to your question is, there is no such thing as a 'pest free' rose of any type. There are insects in every climate which feast on roses. Generally, no climbing rose is significantly more resistant to insects than any other. When a situation is encountered where it appears the rose 'resists' bugs better, it is usually because of some other condition or situation, not the inherent bug resistance of the particular rose.

Some are more cold hardy than others. Some are more disease resistant than others. What would serve you best is research with people local to you, perhaps your local rose society, which climbers are cold hardy for Boston and of them, which are the most disease resistant. But for "bugs", you either let Nature take her course and live with the results, or you choose to spray chemicals to take care of whatever bug issue you encounter. Kim

Purple Splash has been fabulous for me here in New Hampshire. I think it actually is pretty good when it comes to the most serious pest, Japanese beetles. Seems to me they're more attracted to my roses with full and fragrant blossoms. Purple Splash has single blooms, and is mildly fragrant. Also I get a long flush of blooms in June, then it takes a rest in July when the JBs are at their height, and by the time it blooms again the bugs are mostly gone.

It holds up fairly well to blackspot. I do spray but I haven't bothered with the out of reach branches (it's over 12' high). I never see much BS on Purple Spalsh.

Thanks so much for the advice!

Hmm. it sounds like there are no "easy" roses. Any suggestions for something that is an easy climbing type vine. I'm think that maybe I can grow that for now, and then in a few years (when I get more free time) I can grow climbing roses over it?

Is that even possible? Can you co-mingle climbing roses with some other vine?

Many thanks!!

The unavoidable maintenance chore for climbing roses is that they don't attach themselves to the arbor. So somebody has to go out there and do an annual pruning/tying/training on them.

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The rose on the far left is Captain Samuel Holland. Very disease resistant, very good repeat given water, not too terribly thorny, and generally a good rose. John Davis is the light pink one in the middle. It can get some blackspot, but not enough to damage it, is very hardy, almost thornless, and slow growing for a climber. The red one is Quadra. You probably don't want to mess with that one because it can eat small children. It has torn the arbor apart, and when the heat breaks, putting it back together is the first thing on my to-do list.

Clematis are the standard climbing vine. They will need some sort of string or wire arrangement to climb since they can't climb large diameter structures.

I like Nahema. It has beautiful fragrant blooms. I just water and fertilize, trim a little in spring. Upright growth. I recommended Ramblin' Red to my boss. Very vigorous and hardy but not fragrant. I bought Nahema from Roses Unlimited

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:301008}}

Also John Davis is very pretty, easy and healthy.