White Pet
Souvenir de la Malmaison
Potter and Moore
Bishop's Castle
La France
Marie Pavie
Romaggi Plot Bourbon
Aunt Margy's Rose
Mutabilis
Rosette Delizy
Earth Song
Marie Pavie
The Ingenious Mr. Fairchild
Potter and Moore

I live in a warm and dry climate. I don't spray and some of these roses did have mildew issues in the spring, but not very badly.

At the moment Home Run would be my healthiest. There are a few that have just come back from losing all their leaves but HR has never lost them so I'd say it's the best in my yard. Julia Child finally succumbed to the BS all around it and is looking pretty tatty but it held out longer than the rest of them did.

I agree with Seil. Home Run does not blink or bend (or defoliate) for anything. Looks almost as fresh and fulsome as it did back during its spring bloom.

Others that have done fairly well, healthwise, are Mystic Beauty, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Eutin, Elina, Earth Song--but not as flush as last spring.

All the roses I planted this year are doing fine--no disease, no wear and tear, no end-of-the-season decline. I guess they haven't been around long enough to become susceptible to my garden's standard diseases? Who knows. Anyway, they include Munstead Wood, The Wedgwood climber, Pompenella, Berolina, Lady of Shalott. They have had little or no spray at all applied to them.

Oh yeah--Double Knock Out stays healthy--but doesn't bloom and doesn't have that fresh new spring look. (Just cannot get enthusiastic about that rose.)

Some of the battered-looking ones are starting their autumn blooming cycle, so that makes them look better--but the garden/backyard as a whole looks run-down as the growing season starts running out of steam.

Actually, it's kinda discouraging looking out at the backyard. Although there are some healthy bushes, nothing much is blooming--just a stray flower here and there.

Kate

I have several that are really healthy this year.

Belinda's Dream
Love Song
Sunsprite
Double Delight
Peace
Mellow Yellow
Tiffany
Pink Peace
The McCartney Rose
Perfume Delight
Liebeszauber
Tropicana

I have to be honest and tell you these are newly planted roses. I planted quite a few this year. I'm not a beginner, just kind of starting over, although I do have a few established ones. All my roses have done remarkably well, but I think this area had an unusually good season, so a big part of it has been luck. My newly planted roses have put on more growth than I have ever experienced with first year bushes.

After 25 years, I started fertilizing again.
I pruned Handel and it went ape. Miniature climber Red Wand is trying to take over an oak tree. It has a little issue with mildew, probably because how I water. Duchesse De Brabant has taken off and Pompon blanc parfait which was large already is still very vigorous. Beauty of Glazenwood is climbing further into the trees.
Peace and St. Patrick's have grown a lot.

Every rose here is healthy. We don't have many disease issues in this desert. But that is certainly not to say all is perfect. Problems here are mostly connected to the weather-broiling hot, dry summers, and this year a prematurely cold autumn. And of course the need to irrigate regularly, which necessitates a drip system. Still, no black spot, which I think, allows roses to grow larger. They never have to replace leaves. Love it. Diane

I would say my healthiest roses are:

-Hot Tamale: loves my climate
-Livin' Easy
-Mrs BR Cant: really a great rose here; I think it is in pain when it can't bloom.
-Golden Showers
-Alister Stella Gray: I think this rose is really a weed in disguise.

With no fungicide spray, Blushing Knock Out and Caramel Fairy Tale (Caramella). Floral Fairy Tale was clean for most of the season, but now has anthracnose. Everything else is either defoliated (all of the HTs and minis/minifloras) or also has a raging case of the fall cruds.

Ch-Ching (sport of Strike It Rich) is wonderful. Leaves all the way down to the bottom. Large shrub here. Tons of unfading saturated yellow flowers. Supposed to have scent - but so far - none. Might come in next year. Flowers last a long time on the bush.

Carol

Without a doubt, Blushing Bride. A monster this year.

I took a look. Rosenstadt Friesing (another from Kordes) also has leaves, 25% have anthracnose. Better than usual.

The following have been extremely healthy:

Champagne cocktail
Pretty Lady
English Miss
Bridge of Sighs
Old Port
Blue for You

Many of my roses have been good this year but those were the best.

M

PS I did get a clearance Rose a few years back that is not only healthy but always covered in blooms. It was simply labeled "Yellow Rose". O havnt a clue who that Rose is but it's amazing.

Everyhing near naked here or shabby looking except Double Knockout and Carefree Sunshine at the present time... (No spray garden)

This post was edited by jim1961 on Sun, Oct 6, 13 at 19:31

The roses advertised as disease FREE usually bore me. But disease resistant is another matter. Life in general does not allow me to adhere to some strict schedule for spraying roses. So, this summer when we had an unusual cool down combined with rain (very odd) for a couple of weeks I hadn't sprayed in two months and I noticed that there were a few roses that did not have any blackspot on them at all:

-Our Lady of Guadalupe (floribunda)
-Flawless (very large flowered miniflora)
-Queen of Sweden (Austin)
-Aloha (Climber)

I noted that Chrysler Imperial was also holding its own, but had a few spots on it.

Maryl

Late season blackspot actually seems almost charming and entirely appropriate in the particular autumnal light, especially at my allotment where californian poppies and marigolds have reseeded and generally run amok. October is invariably beautiful in England (the payoff for those cool, damp summers) and is a good time to reassess the performance of roses after a dispiriting August and September. So, although there are no roses looking pristine, there are a couple which are both flowering hugely and looking especially well. Jasmina, after requiring a massive midsummer prune (a turbo-charged rose with a huge footprint), sulked but has now cascades of blossom. Aimee Vibert was a real surprise since noisettes are tricksy and temperamental for me but AV is shaping up to be a late season charmer with extremely healthy leafage. Smarty, a modern floribunda, has gone into fresh overdrive as though we were in June. R.Californica truly is beautiful at all times of year....but right now, it is effervescent. Moonlight is my only hybrid musk still delighting us (although still healthy(ish), all my Lens and Pemberton HMs, including Darlow's E, are on early shutdown with not a bloom to be seen). Finally, along with their famous health, some of the new (european) hulthemias are also extremely long blooming - all of them are ramping up to another late show with top billing going to Bright as a Button (Chewsumsigns, I think?) - a Chris Warner rose which is available in the US under a different name.

My Fairy Tale roses from Kordes has thrived this year. No disease at all. Same for Parade...My polyanthas have done great.
Jude the Obscure is hanging in there.
I haven't had much BS this year at all. Seems the stuff that is spotting now is just in the process of falling off because when I pull the leaves there is new growth there.
Susan

Several of my roses are suddenly putting out a lot of new growth all over the bushes--I can already see some buds beginning to form. Maybe in a couple weeks my bedraggled gardens will have survived past the early autumn blahs and finally burst into some halfway decent bloom (I hope, I hope!).

Kate

Elle - only a few feet from traffic and seems to love it!
Betty Boop - trouble free
Fame - healthy bush, flowers last and last
Mellow Yellow - blooms all summer, no disease

Julia Child has only been in the garden two years, but I love that bush. Very healthy, bushy, buttery flowers!

I never spray, don't need to. Have some mildew but don't care.

We had a very hot summer in the SoCal desert but Lasting Love, Just Joey, Chrysler Imperial and Old Fragrance were my stand outs. For a first year, Francis Meilland did very well.

LOL about BR Cant!
Probably one of my faves.
Clotilde Soupert is awesome too.
Ina an Mona is a healthy looking one here.
I have a Cramoisi Superiour living in a field where she's assaulted by deer daily, and she's thriving still. i plan to move her- imagine what she could be closer in? :D

My 2 HT's that hardly ever take a hit are Louise Estes and Remember Me. Lady of the Dawn and Cherisma are my 2 Florabunda's that are spotless. Pink Pet is always clean. Whirlaway and Regina Lee have been 95% clean all year. And Rosa Rugosa is beautifull and clean all the time.

This has been a good summer for my roses.
The healthiest I think include:
Oympiad
Beloved
Tropicana
Love&Peace
Key Largo
Spellbound
April in Paris
America
Fourth of July
Melody Parfumme

QUIETNESS

This Buck rose is by far the most disease resistant/proof rose I have ever grown. No black spot whatsoever all season long, even when adjacent roses are completely defoliated by black spot.

In growth habit it is gracefully, not stiffly vertical, easily reaching 7 ft. by the end of the growing season here in W. PA. In flower habit it is grandiflora like for the first flush of the year and hybrid tea like thereafter. The flower form is old rose like, "quartered," upon fully opening. Being very fragrant is also a plus.

I consider myself the Johnny Appleseed of Quitenesses. If you haven't tried it yet, given average care, I can almost guarantee, barring all unexpected obstacles, you will be glad you did. It is a perfect candidate for the no/minimal spray rose garden.

One thing though, prune it down low in spring because it will get tall. If you let it grow like a shrub rose, as say, Carefree Beauty, Buck's signature shrub rose, with just a light spring pruning, it can get out of control.

More and more nurseries are selling it. Chamblee's is a good mail order source.

QUIETNESS
This Buck rose is by far the most disease resistant/proof rose I have ever grown. No black spot whatsoever all season long, even when adjacent roses are completely defoliated by black spot. In growth habit it is gracefully, not stiffly vertical, easily reaching 7 ft. by the end of the growing season here in W. PA. In flower habit it is grandiflora like for the first flush of the year and hybrid tea like thereafter. The flower form is old rose like, "quartered," upon fully opening. I consider myself the Johnny Appleseed of Quitenesses. If you haven't tried it yet, I can almost guarantee, given average care, and barring all unexpected obstacles, you will be glad you did. It is a perfect candidate for the no/minimal spray rose garden. One thing, though, prune it down low in Spring because it will get tall. If you let it grow like a shrub rose, as say, Carefree Beauty, Buck's signature shrub rose, with just light spring pruning it can get out of control.

OK, Thornton, I'll give you Quietness. It isn't completely spot free for me but it's pretty damn good!

thanks for reminding me I want to try Quietness up here. It was a good rose in north Alabama too. Another Buck rose, Winter Sunset is full of buds and great foliage. The colors blend with the falling leaves, so it is a fun thing to look at right now.

Among the polys, Petite Francoise has its usual autumn cercospora. Pookah looks very good. Sweet Pea has bs foliage issues, but not too bad; most all of the other polys are still blooming, though, so some foliage issues don't really bother me. Sibelius usually has the most problems with it for me. But as the maple leaves are falling fast, somehow dying or diseased rose leaves seem to fit in.

There is no bloom on the Pemberton musks here either; Buff Beauty especially looks healthy. Pax, Cornelia and Felicia have mostly dropped leaves. Bouquet Parfait is blooming some though.

With still pristine leaves and buds or blooms are Lions and Floral Fairy Tales and Cream Veranda. Caramel Fairy Tale is spotty; that rose doesn't do that well for me up here. The gallicas and albas are clean, as usual.

I am used to nonstop falling water and grey skies this time of the year, so it's been amazing to have some sunny days, maybe even into next week. I love it, but it's weird.

All but four of my roses came as bands only this Spring (the other four came as bands in Spring 2012), but by far the cleanest of them all is 'Golden Buddha', a Hybrid Bracteata bred by Paul Barden. Even when blackspot hit hard in late July, this rose remained completely unfazed. The only thing that it showed at all was a touch of mildew on some new growth somewhat recently, which I attribute to the cool nights and long stretch without rain. Whenever I noticed it, I gave it a heavy watering, and the mildew mostly cleared up on its own in a few days.

'Golden Buddha' as of last week.
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'Golden Buddha' on the left, 'Prospero' on the right, taken same day as previous photo.
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'Honorine de Brabant' has also remained rather healthy, though I do see a few leaves with some spots if I look hard enough. Overall, this one has been growing and green the whole time.

'Honorine de Brabant' is second from the left in this pic, against the garage. Unfortunately, I can't find better pics of it. This was from sometime last month.
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'Jaune Desprez' has also been very clean, with only the occasional spotty leaf which soon yellows and falls off. Again, overall it looks healthy and green -- no big bare or yellow patches ever happened on the plant. It's also growing like gangbusters -- one cane reaching over 6' into the Japanese maple onto which it's trained.

'Jaune Desprez' climbing the Japanese maple.
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'Jaune Desprez' before the mulch went down.
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And back in early August, when virtually all the other roses had at least SOME blackspot.
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The only spraying I did was a modified Cornell mixture, using neem oil in place of horticultural oil, and even that I did only twice (once soon after the bands arrived and were repotted, and again in early July). While I realize it's hard to criticize new baby bands for getting hit with blackspot in their first year where I live (where virtually all roses will get it at some point), I think it says a lot for the three I mentioned which have remained almost perfect.

:-)

~Christopher

Don Juan, Joseph's Coat and Iceberg will tie for second place.

Lynn

Eden, Lady Emma Hamilton, Young Lycidas and Memorial Day--all health: no mildew, no rust here in Southern California.

I have to agree on the assessment of Buck's exquisite 'Quietness'. No disease here, hardy to the tips, vigorous as an own-root, constantly blooming, elegant bush habit with good foliage, lovely flower shape, pleasant fragrance and a calming, gorgeous silvery pink color that shows well in the garden and yet blends well with everything. It is also undemanding and doesn't seem to need massive amounts of water or fertilizer to be happy.

Is it the perfect modern rose? For me, yes. It is truly greater than the sum of its parts!

Ducher
Souveneir de la Malmaison
Archduke Charles
Tiffany
Lamarque
Sally Holmes
Spice