Mulch will probably keep you weeds down better than a groundcover. But a thick groundcover that would be low and spread easily around your roses is creeping phlox. It'll spread really well in full sun, which is probably what your roses are in anyway. If you have 3 year old mulch out there, it's probably too thin of a layer by now to block out the weeds. The idea of mulch is to cover the ground so weed seeds can't make soil contact and germinate. However, if you're fighting perennial weeds that germinated in past years, mulch won't get rid of them. Many perennial weeds have the type of roots that when pulled, any bit of root left in the soil will grow right back. So pulling them is a losing battle. I've used Bayer All in One Weed Killer For Lawns to spot spray in my gardens with a hand held trigger spray bottle. As long as you don't do it on a windy day, you'll probably be fine. It kills most broadleaf and grassy weeds. What I'd do is spray the weeds with that, and then the next day cover them all up with cardboard, or mulch or something. Then as new weeds pop up through the mulch, spot spray them right away, before they can go to seed or spread by runners. It will probably take all season to get the weeds under control, but next year will be better as long as you cover up the soil that the weed seeds are freely germinating in. Deanna

Hmmmmm - no scent at all? That is consistent with Peace. (Exasperating disclaimer of the reality: some people find Peace to be delightfully fragrant, but others (including me) find Peace to have no scent whatsoever. :-)) If it's Peace, you'll know soon enough as it opens. It has an ethereal beauty that is breathtaking! I believe I've read before that at least for a while after it was introduced, at rose shows it won so many blue ribbons that show hosts created a separate class just for Peace blossoms so that the rest of the hybrid tea entries wouldn't automatically lose to it! Consequently its legacy in progeny is huge. I grow two hybrid teas in my little condominium area (Fragrant Cloud and Paul Shirville). BOTH are grandchildren of Peace.

I am reading this thread with great interest, esp. due to the fact that so many of our so called "hardy roses" died back to the ground after this past winter! I must say that I had never considered a rugosa, because I was not a fan of their prickly stems and the leaves didn't look so nice to me. However, perhaps I should change my view now! How big does Hansa get in our zone 3 climate here in Calgary? BTW, shillanorth, you have some gorgeous roses!!! :-)

First, do some research on the available chemical fungicides. If environmental concerns are your top priority, then understand that many chemical fungicides are less damaging to the environment than are many organic ones. Most chemical fungicides are also much less potentially damaging to the person spraying than are even the mildest of insecticides. If you wear proper personal protection at both during mixing and applying, then your risk of contacting enough of the chemical to cause yourself harm is rendered exceedingly minute, and this is for chemicals who have a lower toxicity profile to begin with. I've found that BannerMaxx combined with mancozeb will give you 95-99% control of BS, and this is in a climate much hotter and humid for longer than most, except for Florida. If, after fully informing yourself of the choices available and the consequences of each one of those, you choose organic methods to control disease, be aware that the first principal of organic gardening is to get rid of the disease magnets. That may mean elmininating most of your hybrid teas, as they are not really suited to growing organically in most of the East. Concentrate your energies on the roses that have at least some resistance to disease and your results will be far more pleasing. You must be willing to accept some damage to your roses as a total gardening philosophy. Growing roses organically doesn't mean you just substitute products and achieve the identical spotless results. Also be aware that roses with poorly controlled disease are far weaker going into winter and have a much greater chance of not surviving even mild winters. That again makes your cultivar choices of primary importance. The most effective organic fungicide that I've personally trialed for preventative spraying is horticultural sulpher. It must be applied at least weekly, and during times of rapid growth like in early spring, sometimes twice weekly in order to coat the most rapidly growing foliage. It had an effectiveness rate of 40% in my trial, meaning that Angel Face, a rose that will defoliate 100% with no spraying, will retain 40% of it's foliage if sprayed regularly with sulpher. On a more resistant cultivar, of course the retained foliage % would be higher, but I find ANgel Face a good "lab mouse" with which to judge a spray's effectivity. Sulpher has a tendancy to burn at temps above 86°, which is highly problematic in my location as we regularly have many many summer days with temps above that. None of the baking soda and horticultural oil formulations that you may hear regularly touted had any effectivity approaching even 10%. Neem oil, while a decent enough insecticide, burnt leaves badly and also wasn't terribly effective. Copper is is good, but it burns worse than sulpher and can build up to toxic levels in the soil and is far more dangerous to the human than is sulpher. The more folkloric remedies of milk and cornmeal aren't even worth the bytes...