For roses REALLY like GH, there are her color sports, 'Larry Daniels' (light pink) and 'Tina Marie' (almost white). Vintage used to be the only source for those two. If that's still the case, then they might be virtually impossible to obtain.

GH's color sports are good suggestions as they are about the only ones I have found with her fragrance, heavy, continuous repeat and excellent health here. If you have room for a climber and want something to rival her, my Annie Laurie McDowell (available from Burlington) has shown herself to be excellent in the health, bloom, fragrance and thornless departments. Most of the HP and Bourbon OGRs for me (and quite a few others in warmer and more coastal California) have been terribly diseased dawgs.

If you can smell them and have the room for them, many of the Teas and Chinas are worth looking at. Noisettes (again, the room issue) are quite good in many of our areas and virtually all have superb scents and rebloom. Too Cute, a Noisette-poly type seedling of mine, is light pink, double, small blooms in massive clusters. It is highly scented and repeats continuously. It's also shown itself to be of excellent health. Again, available from Burlington. Kim

Here is a link that might be useful: Too Cute

Welcome to the forum. You mentioned that you're new to roses. We all were at one time. It's not rocket science and it's just so great.
You might wish to visit www.helpmefind.com. If you already know about this ignore this post. Once you get to the main page you can choose Advance Search. Do it. it will send down a list of many different type of roses. For example: Noisette. Chose that one...you will see hundreds of Noisettes. You will learn what they look like how they grow, who hybridized them, and where they can be bought. If you have trouble with the site come back and one of us will help you.
Have fun.
Jeannie

Rabbit -- If you're like us, Grandmother's Hat is the perfect rose for our location. Our other top-performers, though, are Tea Roses and China Roses.

I do second the suggestion to look at some of Kim's roses. He's breeding roses that perform similarly here.

You should do particularly well with Reve d'Or, among Noisettes. But tell us more specifically where you're located, and we can be more specific with suggestions.

Jeri
Coastal Ventura Co., SoCal

In the larger Bay Area, another hybrid perpetual (like GH) that I can recommend as doing well is Ulrich Brunner Fils. To me it is more pink (a very emphatic dark pink, not for those who only like pastels!) than red. It is also highly fragrant, very healthy, pretty much thornless, reblooms quickly, and can be maintained at large-to-medium-hybrid-tea bush size indefinitely (my Mom has done that for 50 years now, on an own-root plant). My experience with the plant is Santa Rosa and Livermore, not so different from Palo Alto.

Actually, now I take a breath and think about it, one of the best reds you could possibly grow (for anywhere where GramHat excells) is "Ragged Robin" (aka 'Gloire des Rosomanes') which I am convinced is closely-related to "Grandmother's Hat."

Jeri

I live between Palo Alto and San Jose. For me, exceptionally healthy, repeat-blooming roses would include Glendora, Marie Pavie, Perle d'Or, Sydonie, and Bardou Job. Bardou Job is red but the others range from palest blush to apricot to pink.

Rosefolly

Oh wow! Thanks so much everyone for the wonderful (and speedy!) responses. I can see that I'm going to have a very enjoyable time pondering over everyone's suggestions. I want all of them!

I did try looking for sports of Grandmother's Hat, but as people said, it seems really hard to find them. Also, I'm planning to make a trip to Annie's Annuals this weekend and they sometimes have a rose called Marble Gardens Mystery Rose. I'm wondering whether anyone has ever grown it before, since I got my Grandmother's Hat from Annie's last year and I love her plants in general.

On a side note, I recently sold my novel to a publisher and the first thing I spent my book advance was on...roses! Hence all the new plants this year. My son asked me why I didn't buy a motorcycle instead ;)

Congratulations on the novel! You should let us all know what the title is so you'd have some built-in sales! Kim

RabbitRabbit, if you are getting into old roses, you should come to Sacramento one day and visit the Heritage Rose Garden in the Old City Cemetery. It's a huge collection of old roses, with an emphasis on roses that were found growing on graves in old cemeteries and homesteads, etc., that were planted in and after the Gold Rush era. Some have been identified as particular roses in commerce in those days, and some are called "found roses" - not yet, if ever, identified, and possibly lost to modern gardens. Here you can see some of these roses that people on the forum mention - see how big they get, what their growth habit is, how they really look and smell.
In April, we have an event called Open Garden, where you can take tours of the Rose Garden, or just wander around, and there are roses for sale, grown from cuttings taken from some of the garden's roses. You can find out all about it on our website http://www.cemeteryrose.org. Guess I don't have to tell you that I'm a volunteer there! It's a wonderful place.

This is not an old rose, but fits in well with the old roses because it's a beautifully bushy rose that can get fairly large and has huge, pink, scented flowers. This rose reblooms a lot and is very disease resistant, at least in my warm and dry climate.

Ingrid

Rabbit, I should have mentioned that although you can visit the cemetery rose garden any time (except for a couple of days during the week, when it's closed), midsummer is not the best, as many of the roses don't like that heat and take a rest then. There will be an autumn flush for the Teas, and spring is, of course, the time of the most prolific bloom for all the roses, including the wonderful once-bloomers.
I second Rosefolly's suggestion of 'Perle d'Or'. Not much scent, but adorable cream-to-apricot little blooms all the time, and nice bushes as well. We have several of them in the rose garden, and although they get big here (as do so many things), it's a polyantha, so you could probably keep it smaller (although I defer to advice from more knowledgeable folks, of which there a quite a few on this forum - I am still quite in the "learner" stage myself!).

Thanks so much for the great suggestions! I've never visited Sacramento and will definitely make a trip to the cemetery rose garden if we do go. Perhaps I should time my visit for the Open Garden event, so that I can buy rose clippings!

The other roses folks have suggested sound wonderful. The more I learn about roses, the more I'm drawn to these beautiful, old-fashioned, vigorous plants. I realized from walking around the neighborhood that I tend to see the same kind of roses repeated in everyone's yard (I think it is mostly Iceberg and Knockouts). While pretty enough, they all tend to look the same after a while. Interestingly enough, after I planted my Grandmother's Hat in the ground last month (it was in a pot before), I noticed the scent seems stronger. Do you think soil affects fragrance?

Kim -- thanks so much for the good wishes about my novel! It's a literary ghost story set in 1890s colonial Malaya, about a proposal of marriage from a dead man, and will be published summer 2013 in N. America and the UK by William Morrow. If you're interested, I just made an author page at http://www.facebook.com/yschooauthor

What an interesting concept! I will look for your book!

About the Cemetery -- The first time I visited that wonderful garden it was mid-November, and I don't think I could have had a better introduction to a place.

Fall is still my favorite time to visit there -- so, if you have a chance to do so, try to spend a day there in late October or early November. The roses you see there, blooming then, will be the ones which will bloom through the year for you.

And -- I hope you will consider planting at least a few of the wonderful, ever-blooming, China Roses. I think they're among the best for California, and they show off well in that garden.

Jeri -- Who LOVES the Garden In The Cemetery

You're welcome! How neat! See? You've already sold at least ONE copy...to Jeri. How appropriate your novel is about a ghost and the potential roses may come from the cemetery. Ironic how some things work out, isn't it? Kim

Whenever you do come to visit the Sacramento Old City Cemetery, if you come on a Tuesday or a Saturday, there will be volunteers working in the Rose Garden. Anita (rose garden mgr) and Barbara (curator) are almost always there on those days, and they are the ones who can tell you the most about the roses and the garden. But any of us will be glad to help you find the kind of roses you want to see, and also to answer your questions as best we can. And if you come at Open Garden, my name is Laura, and I will be working there (probably at the Rose Hotel, but possibly some other station) - if you see my name tag, say hello!

Old Town Novato does well for me and the Forest Ranch Pompom, and Yolande d'Aragon has grown out of its mildew after reaching 5. All these roses are in the same color spectrum (cerise pink rose) but they've done well in canyon country in Orange County. I'm about 14 miles inland from Laguna Beach.

Jerome

Yolande d'Aragon mildewed for you?
And here, I thought I was Queen Of Mildew!

It never mildewed here, but annoyingly insisted on blooming way up at the top, where I couldn't see the blooms. I think it does better here if wrapped around a tripod.

Jeri

It also mildewed (and rusted) at Limberlost, Jeri. I found it too stiff to wrap around anything, but it would permit itself to be pegged, arched over when it would generate even more thick, stiff growth straight up, with blooms at the ends only. Pretty flower, could be a whole lot better plant in this area. Kim

All it ever had here was a little of that late-season rust.

At the Stagecoach Inn, they have successfully wound it around a large tripod -- it CAN be done, if you're careful and determined. That seems to work well there -- so if I were to plant it again, that's what I would do.

Jeri

Jeri, Yolande is a rose I prune down to hip height every January - maybe even mid thigh level. It gets bushier for me and blooms often. It is the only old variety (along with Jacques Cartier) that I prune so severely. Yd'A blooms more consistently each year. Really like it.

I prune YdA similarly to Father Jerome. It does shoot up, but the canes start from lower so the roses are at head height, or only a little above. And it has a respectable number of canes. I like this rose very much.

Rosefolly

We probably pruned it even lower.
Didn't matter.

It was determined to bloom at a level somewhere between 6 and 7 ft.

As I am slightly under 5 ft. tall, this presented a problem for me, and Yolande, as a result, went to live elsewhere.

She has had a nice decade or so at the Stagecoach inn, where they have trained her around a pair of tuteurs,thus increasing her bloom. It's all good.

:-)

Jeri

I too had a frustrating experience with Yolande - exquisite flowers atop an ugly very tall shrub. Beautiful flowers every spring that actually opened despite coastal murk, but as summer got drier and hotter in late July-August, the plant got uglier and uglier. The fall bloom couldn't make up for the ungainliness of the shrub, which was now stripped of its hideous leaves....so, shovelpruned!
Reine des VIolettes fared better here for many more years, altho it had similar issues. Glendora was fantastically healthy and floriferous, frightening vigorous - truly merited the adjective humongous. I have a better spot for it now and might just order that one again.

Mudbird, we could almost be neighbors. :-)

Jeri

The cemetery's plant of Tina Marie is big enough to start propagating and offering at the Open Garden. I'll add it to our list.

Please let us know if you are coming to Sacramento, and if it's not during the Open Garden or other event I'll be glad to show you around. I really love sharing our garden and talking to people about it.

Speaking of events - we are having a conference on Oct 12-13-14 at which we will be selling some of our roses and also talking about the roses, the cemetery garden, and California rose history.
Anita

Here is a link that might be useful: Link to Conference Signup

Good thinking Anita. That one is very, VERY endangered, and I'd like to see it spread around.
I need to have Clay make some of it, to distribute here, in Ventura County.

And yes.
The October Conference is a rare opportunity.

(We rec'd our tickets today, and put them into the Motorhome, so they can't be forgotten.)

I don't really have a suggestion because your zone in so much different than mine. But, I wanted to tell you your comment about living in The Queen of Heart's Garden made me laugh. I just have the funniest image in my head of you walking around all of these tall red HTs!

For what its worth, in terms of healthy bourbons that somewhat remind be of GH, I really like Louise Odier & Baron Prevost here in the East.

Tammy

You know, Tammy, Baronne Prevost is even good here on the SoCal coast. She's a Hybrid Perpetual, tho -- not a Bourbon.

Louise Odier is just as hopeless as the rest of the Bourbon tribe, here. I know, I know -- lovely rose. Not, however, here. :-(

Jeri

Does anyone have a list of antique roses that do well in the greater SoCal area?

Some day, in the future, I would like to try planting a few in the less hospitable lower garden area. More random water and bug hunting hens to deal with.

Kippy, where you are is a haven for those which both Jeri and I have promoted forever. Teas, Noisettes, Hybrid Musks, Chinas are the best you could hope for. I know Jeri can give you specific names, but those are the classes most suited for where you are. Kim

I would truly love a list that I could convert to a spreadsheet of colors, heights etc.

We have a hillside that I would love to work toward an example of how orchards, veggies and roses/flowers can live together and be sustaining for the owner and enjoyable to look at as well. Right now I am adding back in the bulbs and recreating terraces and defining the expected walk zones. Thankfully, we are not the only ones on the street with a similar garden desire.

Our garden has pumped out more tomatoes, zucchini, beans, tomatillos and winter squash than we can use, freeze or can. We share a lot of it.

Thanks, Jeri :) Many times I mix up my HPs and Bourbons if I don't take a sneak peek at HMF LOL! They are very similar in look and habit here..I really love both classes equally here in the East!

Tammy

Out here, Tammy, I can't mix 'em up. They reveal themselves.

Damask Perpetuals/Portlands are generally "OK" (Not GREAT, but OK).

Hybrid Perpetuals are generally poor choices, but there are a few exceptions to that generalization.

Bourbons almost uniformely -- to be frank -- S*CK.

:-)

Jeri

Jeri- what a wonderful list! Thanks for organizing them in such an easy to understand format. As a relative newbie, it set me scrambling to figure out the difference between e.g. hybrid musks and teas. And thanks too for everyone's comments, it's so great to hear about all your experiences.

Do any of the roses on that list stay about 4-5 ft high? I'm planning to dig up some roses in front of our low garden fence and replace them, though I wonder whether OGRs become monsters in California?

As long as the OGR is suitable for the particular climate, many OGRs do become monsters, in fact, many roses in general, become monsters in many of our climates. Why wouldn't they? Presuming they receive the winter chill they require and all require SOME, but as with stone fruit, they can vary from very little to a great deal, there is nothing here other than wild fire, rabbits, gophers, squirrels and idiots with shovels and Round Up sprayers, oh, forgot landscrapers and "gardeners" as well as new home owners who wish to put THEIR stamp on the place, to check the rose growth. We mostly don't have killing winter cold except for severe exceptions. We mostly have enough water to keep them alive for many years. Of course, put a type which hates where you've put it and it will shrink and melt away in short order, but put the right type where it wants to be and leave it alone, and it will last for generations. Kim

That is going to be one thing I will have to avoid in the lower garden is rose that want to be monster sized, can't allow them to take over the fruit trees.

Thanks for the list, I will work on that spread sheet

Your China Roses should stay within your 4-5 ft. size range.

Most of my favorite Hybrid Musks will be pretty big. (I should have included 'Bishop Darlington,' but he will be 6 ft. by 6 ft., even if he is pruned in the winter.)

Consider the Poly-Teas -- the bush form of Cecile Brunner, along with Perle d'Or, White Cecile Brunner, and Lady Ann Kidwell. A lot of bang for your buck, color-wise, with great disease-resistance, on roses that can easily (and healthily) be kept in the 5-ft range.

And of course, there are the true Polyanthas -- tho many of those have enough Multiflora to be troubled by alkaline conditions.

Jeri

Love the breakdown, Jeri. Your "how to tell a Portland from a HP from a Bourbon" is classic! I wouldn't know what to do without those classes, but then again, Cali would open up a whole new world of Teas, Chinas, and Noisettes ...as oppossed to how I currently have to grow them: flush against my front brick, potted (ya, trying fitting a 8ft noisette in a pot, not gonna happen) or in the limited space on the protected side of my house!

Can't have it all I guess :)

Tammy

Nope. And I bet you can grow Gallicas -- Albas -- Damasks ... We can't. I've seen them growing in Memphis, and it was an education.

Wanting what we can't have is human nature. But we long ago went through the stage where we said "We'll MAKE them grow here."

Live and learn. I don't have to plant and torture any more Northern European once-blooming roses. Been there. Done that. Now, I plant what has a chance of growing here. It's far more satisfying to see HAPPY plants.

Jeri