We don't live in your location, but I can't see any potential problems.

Albas and most of the gallicas actually go into a true dormancy - much like trees and other woody plants. You probably have wild roses growing somewhere nearby that do the same thing. Once a woody plant enters dormancy, it's pretty impervious to the type of temperatures and temperature cycles that you are talking about.

Like all roses, these will grow best if you can keep the soil evenly moist during the growing season. - but these kind of roses are quite tolerant of dry soils.

Most gallicas will get a "nice" display of mildew later in the season, but since they only bloom once, you don't have to do anything about it. Our albas occasionally get a little black spot, but it is so marginal that we never do anything about that, either. IME, neither of these affect the plants overall health.

This post was edited by nickl on Thu, Jul 25, 13 at 14:04

Josh, I live in zone 8. Gallicas and Albas do very well here.

Yes, you'll have enough chill. The only drawback would be that hot weather during the spring flush will shorten the blooming period.

duplicate, sorry

This post was edited by michaelg on Wed, Jul 24, 13 at 16:14

Thank you for your help everyone! I am relieved to hear that these roses will be successful here, especially since I MAY have purchased some before asking. (Didn't occur to me until I was reading a post by Jeri).

Michael,

Around what temperature would you say the roses start being affected by the weather? Our summers don't really get rolling until about mid-late June. Before that, the temps don't rise higher than 80-85.

Josh, sorry I can't be more precise; I was just repeating the conventional wisdom. I do grow a few once-bloomers myself, but in a mild-summer climate.

If we get a heat wave during the bloom, they bloom out very quickly. Defining a heat wave as two or more days with daytime highs in the 90's should give you a good idea.

Josh:

You pose an interesting question: Do unusually high spring temperatures - or other adverse spring conditions - affect the blooming period/quality of roses?

AFAIK, there hasn't been any work on that. However, the OGRs that you are considering have one and only one bloom period per year. If something adverse happens during that period, they aren't going to bloom again later on. Trees and other woody plants that bloom only once per year actually do lose a year if conditions are very adverse during their bloom period . So it makes sense to think that could happen at least in part to roses, too.

However, I don't think there's been much done to determine just how adverse conditions have to be

When I lived in the Dallas area, I grew Madame Plantier on the east side of our single story house in somewhat amended clay soil. Our yard had almost no trees, so this morning sun, afternoon shade position was a prime spot in our sunny yard. Over the years, she grew to be quite a large shrub, and I rather remember that the bloom period lasted 3 -4 weeks. I don't remember exactly when she bloomed, but the flowers were never ruined by the rain, and I don't remember her bloom being cut short the year that May was VERY hot, with a cooler June and July. Madame Plantier was so lovely in bloom, that even my husband (a lover or red, yellow and orange roses) thought she was beautiful, too. I realize that HMF now lists Madame Plantier as an alba, a hybrid china or a hybrid noisette, so she may be more suited to the south than others.

I also grew the damask Ispahan in the same bed. Both of these roses did well in this spot.

Albas and gallicas do great here, and I'm in a very hot and dry summer area. Low annual rainfall. Damasks do well here too (not surprising as they come from a very hot and dry part of the world). Very little winter chill. I don't know exactly how important this is (among various other contributing factors), but my elevation is higher than some who don't do well with these classes in Southern California and who actually have more winter chill than I do. Elevation being something to consider came to my attention after reading about it in a scientific paper written about damasks in the middle east.

Another issue that I've been pondering for a while, is how much cultural practices in rose keeping in hot, dry locations, negatively affect the performance of particularly the albas, gallicas, and damasks. One thought that has occurred to me is that the "baseline" of care that is assumed for most roses in the majority of rose pr that has been given to the public over the years, has used the hybrid tea as the example to follow. So from years of information saturation, what the hybrid tea likes best appears to be the standard of care assumed to be ideal for all classes of roses, pretty much everywhere. Well, it ain't necessarily so that all roses like what hybrid teas do--which is lots of fertilizer and water, frequently applied. Think of other garden plants and consider how much variation there is in what the different ones prefer. For example, salvias. Many of the California native salvias are very drought tolerant and may die or just barely survive much summer water. They also don't care for being fertilized. Others however want a rich, moist soil.

My albas, damasks, gallicas (and rugosas) are among my most drought tolerant of roses. Since I started with old garden roses, I never got into the "hybrid tea" mentality, and thus my roses have always been grown with only very light and infrequent feedings (sometimes no fertilizer for *years*), and low water. I didn't know until I started reading these and other forums in the last several years that I couldn't grow these roses! The roses recommended, mainly teas and chinas, have been disasters here. They stand out for wanting much more food and water than I'm accustomed to giving my other roses. Guess over the years I've been doing my own Earthkind trials.;)

Josh, I don't know how closely your conditions resemble mine which is a mediterranean climate, but if it were me, and I was considering growing a new class or classes of roses, I'd look at where those roses come from and are happy, and how similar those conditions would be in my garden. Actually I would expect albas and gallicas to do well for me, and if they didn't I'd want to look into what I was doing to change the natural environment here into one they didn't like. I think such changes haven't happened because I'm basically a lazy gardener who just isn't into the effort and expense that would entail.

Melissa