Thanks all your comments. I decided to look a little further afield in the Alba world, and came across Suaveolens at Vintage. This sounds like a happy medium between Maxima and Semi-plena - more double than Semi-plena, more fragrant than Maxima, and with hips to boot. I think I am being enabled toward Suaveolens! Anyone want to talk me out of it? Rick

Hi Nanadoll, Chicago is on the same parallel as New York and both are on the same parallel as Barcelona Spain. The difference in the zone is the winter low temperature-not the day length or light intensity.Roses like places where its cool all summer-like England. I used to think that roses liked hot spots, and some do, but now I've read that cool is best. In some towns nearby, the roses look great in the summer because the asphalt heat reduces humidity. That is why they have no fungus. The opposite also works- lots of cool morning sun(which dries off the dew) and protection from heat. I have many of my roses in pots that I store in the basement through winter. I can lug them around here and there to capture more sun or cool them off in the hot part of summer or just find their happy spot before planting. I had some roses in a hot spot and they weren't happy-I moved them to a cooler place and they began to grow. I also tried baking soda this summer for black spot and it seemed to work just as well as the disgusting chemicals(which I never spray enough because I hate them getting on my clothes. Some other varieties that worked well for me in part shade were Sheer Bliss,Autumn Sunset,Kordes Perfecta and Sally Holmes. Mirandy is on the shade list but doesn't look too good now-Ill see next year. Sheer bliss grew like a weed, had no black spot most of the summer until the real hot weather and flushed several times.Sally Holmes has great glossy fungus free foliage-but little scent.It is now shooting up at the base of a tree. Ive noticed under trees where it stays dryer, some plants wont fungus as bad too-as long as they get enough angled light.

I have a weakness for white roses, including some roses that are actually pale pink, but read like white to my eyes. I'm one of 'Mme. Jules Bouche's fans. Among the warm climate roses not too many come to mind, actually, though like all the world I like 'Mme. Alfred Carriere' and 'Cl. Mrs. Herbert Stevens'. Oh, and 'Odorata' is a good one, with a particularly good scent. 'Dupontii' makes a 10' x 10' shrub, self-supporting and arching, with sweet-scented milk-white blooms, well-behaved, distinctive, and handsome all year long. It's supposed to be an offspring of R. moschata, and looks it. Of the once-blooming old roses, 'Mme. Zoetmans', 'Vierge de Clery', or whatever the name of the white sport of 'Centifolia' is, 'Shailer's White Moss'. Of modern roses I've always liked the DA 'Winchester Cathedral', and the DA 'Sharifa Asma' is good (color pink but white in effect), a sturdy rose and one of the most fragrant around. Oh, the Pemberton Hybrid Musk 'Pax' is a fine plant and has particularly fine buds. And 'Penelope' is near white and has every virtue.

No clue about the rose, except that I have been surprised at how different White Meidiland is from Alba Meidiland in the bloom form, given that Alba means "white". I just had to comment on how adorable your daughter looks on her first day of Kindergarten! It was hard at first to look beyond her precious face to notice the rose in the background, even for an admitted "rose nut". Cynthia