How about the dwarf bourbons such as sports of Souv. de la Malmaison? I'd also give a pot to Prospero.

I guess you would prefer grafted plants for a faster start. From Pickering you might choose Prospero, Tamora, Pretty Jessica, Shrifa Asma, Souvenir de la Malmaison. Possibly Boule de Neige? Would that bloom well as a first-year plant?

Or from Roses Unlimited you could get fair-sized ownroot plants of Souv de St Annes, Mystic Beauty, Kronprincessin Viktoria and two of the Austin roses above.

Any chance of overwintering pots in the underground parking?

Hey, ispahan, sounds like an ideal situation for a China or Tea since cold conditions will not be an issue. And maybe you could keep a favorite inside over the winter. I have a Louis Philippe now in a 2-gallon pot awaiting a permanent home, and he's sprouting and blooming like the one in the ground. Maybe you could get them started inside in the spring. That would extend your season and allow them to get a little bigger before their farewell. Vintage has a dark red China called Purpurea that I just bought (ARE calls it Winecup) that only gets about 3' tall. Hermosa is a smallish lavender/pink China with globular flowers. There's always the Gruss's. Gee, sounds exciting. You could have the southern roses that no one else in Chicago has! Sounds like a beautiful balcony! Go for it.
Sherry

I forgot you said no myrrh. So Tamora is out.

Did you grow any Portlands before? Jacques Cartier/Marchesa Boccella might be good. I don't know if the foliage of Rose de Rescht stays decent in Chicago, it doesn't here.

Hmmm... All of these choices sound beautiful. I especially love the idea of 'Souvenir de St. Annes' and 'Prospero' as well as a china or tea. I used to fantasize about living in a warmer climate and growing things like 'Duchesse de Brabant' and 'Monsieur Tillier'. Maybe now is my chance to do it?

I have missed having roses so much!

I used to grow 'Rose de Rescht' at my old home in Michigan. While the blooms were lovely, it was completely defoliated every season from blackspot by the middle of July.

Unfortunately, I do not have any underground parking, since my building is one of the few oddballs with an outdoor parking lot. I *do* have a very small underground storage space that would stay completely dark and cool during the colder months. Do you all think that would work to overwinter a favorite rose or two? Funny that I never thought of it before...

The temperature range for dormant storage needs to be 20-40, occasionally 45. When temperatures average 42 or so, they will start growing. You would need to keep the plants upstairs as long as possible, letting them go dormant, but covering them against the slab or wall when temperatures are 10-15, maybe down to 5 briefly. You would have to watch them in storage and bring them up when they start growing, either moving them in and out of the house, or letting the new growth freeze and returning to the fall regime until the normal growing season starts.

The first thought in my head was "Color Magic". For many of us this rose is a summer annual regardless of our efforts to get the dang thing through a winter.

I plan to try again though - I do love the blooms on it and if it survives it grows quickly.

Hey, ispahan, sounds like an ideal situation for a China or Tea since cold conditions will not be an issue. And maybe you could keep a favorite inside over the winter. I have a Louis Philippe now in a 2-gallon pot awaiting a permanent home, and he's sprouting and blooming like the one in the ground. Maybe you could get them started inside in the spring. That would extend your season and allow them to get a little bigger before their farewell. Vintage has a dark red China called Purpurea that I just bought (ARE calls it Winecup) that only gets about 3' tall. Hermosa is a smallish lavender/pink China with globular flowers. There's always the Gruss's. Gee, sounds exciting. You could have the southern roses that no one else in Chicago has! Sounds like a beautiful balcony! Go for it.
Sherry

Sorry, I don't know why that reposted.

On a balcony like that, I'd try:
1. Bourbon: Souvenir de St Annes
2. Very Old Floribunda: Gruss an Aachen or Pink Gruss an Aachen
3. Austin: Sharifa Asma
4. True tea rose: Duchesse de Brabant
5. Portland / HP: Marchesa Boccella

Yes, I know those are all shades of pink, but they compliment each other, and my gosh, your balcony would look & smell good.

Randy

I think I am now definitely sold on 'Duchesse de Brabant' and 'Souvenir de St. Annes'.

What do you all think of 'Mrs. B.R. Cant'? I love the pictures, but would she perform well under my conditions? What about 'Monsieur Tillier'?

Hermosa used to be a houseplant in parts of Sweden in the old days when "the best room" in the house was unheated except for company. I think you should try to keep one rose outside on the balcony. It can be overwintered with insulation on every side of the pot. If you stand a box on an old rug, put the pot in the box and wrap it with bubble plastic and cover well with a blanket, I am sure it will live unless Chicago winters are very much worse than Stockholm winters?

Mrs B R Cant is a huge bush in the ground, and Monsieur Tillier isn't a little guy. Someone else probably knows if they like pots.
Sherry

First of all I would get grafted roses because they are so much faster to get going and flower more in the first year than any own root (exception to the rule: Folksinger).

I would get a few new disease resistant Kordes roses from Palatine. Floral Fairy tale (Sangerhaeusser Jubilaeums Rose) is unbelievably clean and I find it fragrant. Repeats well. I ordered Lions rose this year after discussing various whites with Rene (owner of Palatine). Last year I needed a rose for someone who wanted to grow a rose in pot and Rene suggested Sister's Fairy Tale (Home and Garden). I would ask Palatine which roses they would recommend that is fragrant not only disease resistant. They will tell you.

I think Gruss an Aachen would do well in pot.

Parole is not very tall and very, very fragrant. Special Occasion is a short rose that is a bloom machine but I don't know how it would do without spraying.

I 100% second Michael's recommendation re Prospero.

I doubt that Sharifa Asma or Marchesa Boccella would be good without spraying. Duchesse de Brabant is a monster - it would not look good in a pot.

Are own-root tea roses going to produce a significant number of blooms during a first growing season of six months duration in a 16" pot? This is not a rhetorical question, since I haven't a clue. Whatever roses she chooses need to be very busy bloomers. I think the smaller chinas would probably perform, but which of these is fragrant enough to meet the prime directive?

My personal experience is that *nothing* own root is going to produce given that time span. Maybe if there was a nursery selling three-four year old own-root roses, but not the typical six-month babies. Even ARE roses aren't mature enough to do much here in their first summer (and many don't survive to the second one)

It is by no means unknown for grafted HTs to have their best performance year the first year they are in the ground, before they see a winter. The same is true of floribundas. They aren't a class I've done a lot with because they have the same disease problems as HTs in this climate.

Ashdown sells some own root oldies that are a fair size - the Old Blush I purchased this spring hasn't been out of bloom all summer.
Doubt if blackspot would be much of a problem in the city - where are the spores going to come from?
Your storage spot sounds ideal for wintering over. Hey, people are growing roses on NYC terraces, so why not Chicago? Go for it!

Duchesse de Brabant would not be "a monster" when grown as a six months annual in Chicago.

Randy

Irish Hope is a floribunda with some fragrance, good disease resistance, and very beautiful old-fashioned flowers. It is available grafted from Pickering, and my plant bloomed well the first year. Gruss an Aachen is also at Pickering. It would perform well but is not very fragrant to my nose. I think Pickering's SdlM would be a good choice too. I agree with Kaye that grafted plants will do better as annuals. However, Souv. de St Anne's from RU should bloom some, and she does have extraordinary fragrance. Prospero can produce primo flowers while a small plant, and I think the disease resistance would be satisfactory.

After reading all of your wonderful responses here and using the search function to peruse old posts, I have come up with an initial list of five roses to try. I have decided to focus on some of the more tender roses (teas, chinas and poly-teas) since they are all types I never would have dared to grow in my old garden. All of your suggestions have been great so far, but I have been longing to grow some of these more tender beauties for so long now! :-)

I am going to try to select the 2-3 most beautiful and best performers and overwinter them, in which case I would subsequently be able to give them HUGE pots. With that in mind, I have tried to select cultivars that people seem to have had success with growing in pots *long-term* (by which I mean more than two years) on this forum and have also been mentioned as compact growers in various online catalogues.

Here is what has caught my eye so far, but this is by no means carved in stone:

1)'Ducher' for a compact, pure white, fragrant china rose.

2)'Francis Dubreuil' is one that I would have for fragrance although I am concerned that the flowers may burn in the hot summer sun. Actually, this rose is more for my SO who is insisting that we include a "dark red" rose.

3)'Madame Antoine Mari' for a beautiful, fragrant pink tea rose that would be more manageable in size than the exquisite but rambunctious 'Duchesse de Brabant'.

4)'Perle d'Or' for the dainty little apricot-toned blossoms and the promise of fragrance.

5)'Spice' for its fragrant, blush pink/white blooms. Its seems that quite a few of you have grown this in pots--at least for a while--although it seems it can be quite a monster when planted in the ground in suitable climates. ARE mentions that the size can be "controlled."

I don't expect any of these will ever attain the gigantic size they would when planted in the ground in a warmer climate, but I am hoping that at least a couple of these will perform well for me.

Do you all think these are good choices, or should I rethink some of them? I would like to be able to order them from ARE since they seem to have slightly more mature stock which would give me a bit of a head start next spring.

Thanks again,
Ispahan

overnight scentsation has fragrance like old roses. I grew her for a while.

Personally, I like your list a lot. Good choices. One comment though ... I grow Spice and it is a wonderful, shapely, productive rose. And so far, it has not been a rampant grower at all ... slow and steady. Mine is in a container and it looks beautiful there, 100% healthy too, although I know some day it will have to come out and go into the ground as it gains more size. Anyway, my point is that I can barely smell any fragrance on my Spice. I suppose it could be just my nose, but thought I let you know my experience. Also, to me, Spice & Ducher are kind of similar in nature. I'm not sure I'd grow both of them if I could only choose 5 roses. I think I might stick with Ducher, and consider swapping Pink Gruss an Aachen (or regular Gruss) for the Spice. FYI, my nose can smell the Gruss roses just fine, and it's a good fragrance. No one on this forum will be surprised that I'm "pimping" the Gruss roses.

Randy

ispahan, ditto on what Randy said. Spice is nice but not much smell and kinda bland. I have it & it's healthy and faithful but not exciting. I just bought 4 Gruss's - 2 regulars & 2 pinks, and I'm excited about them - but they're only bands not yet potted up. I like your choices, but I have to recommend Louis Philippe. It's flowers are so pretty - pink & red, kind of lacey. And the smell is peppery & sweet that I just can't get enough of. The smell doesn't waft in the air, but it's still good. And Cramoisi Superieur has lovely globular flowers that smell great.
Sherry

I second the suggestion for Souvenir de st Annes and Mystic Beauty. These are compact roses, with great repeat bloom and fragrance.