Melissa,

How hot is hot? And is your soil acidic? You might want to consider rugosas if they'll grow in your area. Hansa and Sir Thomas Lipston are especially lovely in my yard. I have clay & rocks (glacial till), we have very dry summers, and I try not water anything that's not dying. In spite of record heat and the driest June & July ever recorded in our area (one week with temperatures into the 100's, and no rain for almost 2 months and counting), Hansa and Sir Thomas are covered with blooms right now. Moje Hammarberg is still pretty new, but has a lot of potential to be another beauty. Easy roses, fragrant, lots of blooms, fall color, and hips. What else can you ask for?

Melissa, it sounds like a place where roses go when they've been very, very bad, a sort of gulag of rosedom. I had also thought of rugosas but wasn't sure how well they would do in clay. When I saw your list of possibles Ispahan jumped out at me since Persian weather is no picnic either, and of course it has a very long blooming period for a non-remontant rose. My toughest rose in terms of heat has been Carding Mill, which is surprising for an English rose. R. hemispherica and R. sancta may also do well. I don't think anything is guaranteed in such a situation, but you have other roses there so there's hope. I don't suppose you'd consider having another rose of one of the varieties that is doing well there? I know, it's so tempting to get to know just one more new rose. It's what keeps me (and probably others) ordering new roses for which we have no space.

Ingrid

Rugosas don't mind the clay but they go chlorotic in alkaline soils. I heard Stanwell Perpetual described as a tough rose. I am going to try it next year in a tough spot. The specimen at the San Jose Heritage Garden is huge and beautiful with unusual foliage and beautiful almost transparent pink blooms. The only caveat I have is it seems to me it is a rose better enjoyed from up close than from afar.

Masha

Oh, goody, you're talking about our species rose garden, on a knoll in acidic clay with no irrigation.
R. sancta came on multiflora rootstock and is spreading and blooming happily at four years as if it were designed for the place. It is magnificent.
R. canina could be larger, but still has an elegant tall vase shaped form. R. eglanteria is having fits with rosy galls, but is begining to spread (and the scent merits a place in every windy garden.)
R. spinosissima altaica seems to love it (hard to think that it would be possible to spread even more in a sandy soil.)
R. roxburghii (the full bloom form) hasn't put on the size of the parent up in substrate that is soil. But it still manages to bloom year round.
Need a thug of a rose? 'The Gift' seems to become massive everywhere; when we moved a bit of one to the species garden I expected it to languish- nope, it owns the place.

Finally R. bracteata...if it's not classified as a dangerous invasive it will do well and bloom all summer and probably be an evergreen for you. It's leaves are deep green (and might pass for holly in Christmas wreaths from a distance.)

I was going to suggest R. roxburghii, The Chestnut Rose, too. I've read it doesn't mind alkaline soil and really isn't particular about soil quality which made me happy. I have it growing in a pot until fall comes. It has gotten quite large. Then it's going out near the street near the 'death zone' that's part of the road bed for our street. I'll amend it greatly, but it's ugly cement-like stuff. I love that this rose has such unique foliage and doesn't get BS.

Sherry

Bracteata hybrids.
"Alba Odorata" is a very beautiful plant, with attractive thick as holly leaves foliage. It blooms from late June through Oct-November near the latitude, but not near the coast of San Francisco, Ca. , it wants and needs heat to bloom at its best and is easy to maintain. Its fragrance is luxerious, heady, and elusive exceptin humid heat.
"Seafoam" is a grandchild of R. bracteata, and its been given the Eathkind designation for being healthy. It makes a spreading plant, of c. 4 feet by 5 feet.
then there's always "Mermaid" , it seems like you've got the room for it.

Melissa, do you amend much?

Luxrosa

I'm with Masha on Stanwell Perpetual. Slow to develope, but such a producer in the sorriest hot/dry/windy/poor soil part of the garden. I have huge/perfect blooms on my small plant right now in the 2 week span of 100+ weather we've been having. The fragrant blooms don't crisp, how cool is that. Can't wait to see what this rose will do when it gets established...
Any of the Damasks should work nicely, as long as there is plenty of sun. Ispahan is going to get pretty big, tall and arching. And I imagine the Hybrid Chinas would do well in your unfriendly spot.

As a nice side effect of Melissa's post, I'm learning about all sorts of neat roses like Alba Odorata and rosa bracteata. I never realized these roses bloomed for a long time. AO certainly shows in its flowers that one of its parents is a tea rose. It is really magnificent.

Ingrid

Taking your answers one by one, more or less:

Recent inquiry has caused me to wonder whether our soil is as alkaline as I've always thought it, but it is a fact that acidophile plants don't grow for me. I've never tried Rugosas in the garden, for a couple of reasons, but have an idea they wouldn't like it there. 'Sarah van Fleet' grows in a different part of the garden but gets mowed down by cane borer, which has become a problem the last couple of years. 'Thèse Bugnet' grows pretty well for me, in a more favored position, and is a quite beautiful plant. (Both these Rugosa hybrids were given to me.)

Both R. roxburghii and 'Stanwell Perpetual' are already growing in this bed, being in the category of roses that are growing adequately if not wonderfully. R. roxburghii is grafted and that may be hurting it: I have a cutting grown plant out in the little meadow area close by and it's growing like mad, in cracked clay and with no summer water. Sherry, I think you'll love this rose, it's just jammed with personality. 'Stanwell Perpetual' is rather scraggly in appearance and much smaller than, for example, the plant of a friend who lives up in the colder and wetter Dolomites; but it's healthy and floriferous and definitely tough.

I got 'Ispahan' last fall and planted it in a nearby area that's even worse than this one: I can't get any rose to live there, and sure enough 'Ispahan' is on its last legs, though we pulled it out of the bed and potted it in a desperate effort to keep it alive. Roses even a few feet away are healthy: it's odd. Anyway, is 'Ispahan' tough? Is it very tough? My plant will be grafted, probably on 'Laxa', which is a good rootstock for our soil, being, I think, a form of R. canina. Somebody correct me if I'm mistaken in any of this. I do have other Damasks growing in similar ground near this--in fact, the Damask bed is the same kind of trouble spot as this bed--and some are doing well.

Ann, I'll keep the species you mention in mind, but the nurseries I'm planning on ordering from don't carry the ones you suggested, so I'll file them away for future reference. R. eglanteria and spinosissima altaica are calling me, I can tell (I'm a big fan of 'Fruehlingsgold'). I know R. bracteata has a reputation in the South for being invasive: I don't know how it would behave here.

I was given cuttings of 'Alba Odorata' but used a propagation method that failed and so am still plantless. I'll keep it in mind: I would definitely like to try it. I have a huge weakness for glossy evergreen leaves in all their forms. As it happens I do have a young plant of 'Mermaid', but an earlier plant died close by, and this space would be too small, I think, for 'Mermaid' to romp to its heart's content. I have another site waiting for it.

Luxrosa, I honestly don't know whether you would consider tons of hay a lot of amendment. We don't dig in much material. This ground is all extremely heavy clay, and I'm seriously considering adding gypsum--I think it is; help me, Ann!--to help break it up. We've been mulching these beds for years now and it just doesn't seem to help a great deal. Well, I can see some signs of improvement, but it was such an ugly place to start with.

Thanks to everybody for the feedback, and if you get more ideas, let me know!

Melissa

Melissa, One of my all time favorites is Wolley Dod's Rose(Duplex) I think it is beautiful all year. Mine is in a tough spot and receives no water at all in the summer.

Melissa, gypsum (calcium sulfate) is used to condition clay soils, but the most fruitful application is on salty arid soils that are high in sodium, which the calcium displaces. If your soil tends alkaline, it is likely to be already high in calcium or Ca + magnesium. Calcium helps clay aggregate into crumbs. The hay mulch does also.

I'm curious, how far down the soil profile do you notice the effect of years of mulching?

Why not get some litmus paper or a cheap meter and check your pH?

Hi Melissa, you know how much I like rugosas but I too would not suggest you a rugosa in that spot: clay... heat... really does not sound like a rugosa would be happy there...
What about trying with a china rose like "sanguinea" ?

Can you get the rose Alika?
It is a strong orange red and blooms surprising long for me in the spring. Although we planted it in some improved soil in a real rose bed, it has chosen to spread into some of the worst clay known to roses. Good looking hips, needs no care. Nor water. Nor fertilizer.

Hello from hot dry alkaline clay unfriendly soil Texas!

We have brutal summers, & although I think our winters are cold, I've been informed that others have worse ones.
20F is very very cold here.

I've very good luck with Noisettes, Chinas, & Austins, & although I don't know how they do in large numbers, my neighbors have a beautiful Rugosa, name unknown, that has taken over a corner of their garden.

In cold climates, people mulch to protect their plants' roots from the cold;
here, we do it to protect them from cooking in the heat.

I mulch like mad.

You might google Earthkind Roses;
it's a designation for roses that survive here with little to no care.

Best luck!

Two American found roses which do very well in difficult situations are Manchester Guardian Angel and Pleasant Hill Cemetery. Both are noisettes, both tolerate heat, drought and dry soil; clay I don't know about. And I can't speak to availability in Europe.

What about the Mansuino banksia hybrids? Those were developed in Italy and should be available for you. The banksia species hybrids grow about anywhere that doesn't get too cold.

THe noisettes do well in these locations here in my coastal southern California garden. Because of the somewhat dank conditions in spring-early summer, it doesn't get hot enough to ensure that Teas, Chinas or Hybrid Teas will consistently do well, particularly yellow roses suffer. But, I've found that some of the yellow Tea-Noisettes will do very well in the toughest sunniest hottest dryest spots. Right now i've got a thriving Jaunes Desprez in one of these spots. It's not huge, but it blooms recurrently and is very slowly building up. But, it languished in the richer soiled, cooler parts of the garden where the Hybrid Musks are very happy.

Ispahan is tough, very tough.. Where I have it is a little less sun than what it would like, so it doesn't always look so hot.
The particular version of Kazanlik I have is very tough, with a nice upright growth, healthy as anything.

Have you tried any of the eglantines? A commonly overlooked group, most get pretty big, very thorny, briar like growth. The foliage is strongly scented of green apples, smells great all the growing season, though just one, long annual bloom. No disease and as tough as they come. Manning's Blush is one of the smaller of this variety, a real charmer.

I haven't had the greatest luck with the teas, noisettes and all those in between in my unfriendly spots. Seems the delicate root systems take longer to establish, often winking out before they can get going good.

Thanks, everyone, for all this input!

Greybird, you've put my suspicions into words: I could be wrong, but I'm not happy at the idea of trying Noisettes in extremely compact clay. I'm tempted to try again with 'Ispahan', since I know that roses will grow in this area, unlike where I had it before, where I've never gotten anything at all to live, much less flourish. I'm greatly tempted to try R. hemosphaerica in the other available space, as the R. foetida varieties do quite well in this bed. They grow slowly, but they look happy and they flower. I have 'Kazanlik' a little further down, also in miserable soil. It grows, flowers, and spreads, though I can't say it's as cheerful as I'd like. Generally the Damasks and near descendents seem the class best able to handle this area, along with the R. foetida varieties. And then there are the other individual varieties that surprise me by their toughness, as I wrote at the start of my thread. I've never gotten excited by the Eglantines, though I know that sooner or later one or two are going to find their way into my garden, for the scented foliage.

mudbird, I have several yellow Noisettes, including a 'Reve d'Or' charmingly given me as a gift that's waiting for a home. 'Jaune Desprez' and 'Maréchal Niel' are both growing well in quite poor soil, 'Duchesse d'Auerstaedt' is splendid, in slightly better conditions. Although these roses are anything but pampered, they're still not living out there in full sun, full wind, a long way away from a hose, in the worst ground in the garden (well, say, on a scale of 0 to 100, worst to best, this ground is about 5). I'm skeptical about them.
By the way, my 'Jaune Desprez' was also slow to start, but now it's twenty feet high and still growing. It has a lovely scent, and has been putting out a few flowers all summer since its spring bloom. Mine is in part shade, but gets plenty of heat.

nastarana, I don't know whether those two varieties are available in Europe, either, but they're definitely not to be gotten from the nursery I'm planning to order from. I will keep your recommendation in mind.
The hybrid Banksiaes would be too big for the areas I have in mind. Also, I had 'Purezza' nearby in a terrible spot: it died. I suspect that elms strangled it. Anyway, they need to go somewhere else.

I have to abandon the computer for a bit, but intend to finish later.

Melissa