I'm surprised nobody has posted on this thread for so long. Anyway, while knowing which general classes of roses are best, it's just as important to consider the specific individuals within those classes. The most successful rose I grew while in Mississippi was the Cherokee Rose (Rosa Laevigata). Second in vigor and health was the yellow Banksia. Third, I suppose, would be Rosa Fortuniana, which I planted (mislabeled by Bracy's, as usual) thinking I'd bought the white Banksia. Fortuniana is a hybrid of white Banksia and Cherokee. I've also had spectacular results with Mermaid and Fortune's Double Yellow. And while the endlessly touted 'New Dawn' was a bit of a disappointment, the once-blooming parent from which it sported, Dr. W. VanFleet, was a disease-free giant (I measured some thirty-foot canes!!!). My family's 'official rose' is Silver Moon, a big, disease-free old Hybrid Wichuriana. My Great-Grandmother bought one during her glory days as one of the richest women in the Delta. After the Cotton Panic of '25 decimated her plantations and vaporized the banks in which she owned stock, our struggling family would make cuttings from that original plant, as they established their own homes. A big, pushy, loud church leveled her home in the Eighties (purchasing it with promises not to, of course...pathological lying being that denomination's other salient trait), and bulldozed her gardens. But that rose's progeny lives on, from River Oaks to Mountain Brook. Today, a generation of budding gardeners is making cuttings of those Silver Moons, for homes from Mendocino to the Isle of Palms. I also grew up with another probable Wichuriana hybrid that seems to have been 'Gardenia'. Lemon-Creme blooms, tea fragrance, apple-green foliage, totally free of disease. Dorothy Perkins is a Wichuriana hybrid, which, while prone to a dusting of surprisingly-attractive mildew, is otherwise fabulously healthy and wonderfully easy to root. I think I've seen Dorothy's deeper pink sister, 'Debutante', naturalized in the hedgerows, along roads leading to Natchez. Anyway, the Wichuriana class, while once-blooming (except for New Dawn), are fabulously healthy, and mostly immune to the occasional cold snaps which complicate things down south. Dr. W. VanFleet, BTW, is also a Hybrid Wichuriana. Before we moved up here, I was falling in love with what was sold to me (at the Greater Belhaven Farmer's Market)as the non-climbing form of the Polyantha, Clotilde Soupert. Not a trace of blackspot; continual bloom; wonderful scent; petal-packed, cabbagey little blooms, fading to a nice, neutral fleshy-pinky-offwhite; blooms well into early winter; GOOD SHADE TOLERANCE: what's not to love? An aunt in South Carolina passed this little mnemonic along to me from a rose lecture she'd attended: "Polyantha Noisette likes her Tea in a China cup." That sums up, pretty well, the classes of antique ever-blooming roses best for the South. Walking to class at Tulane, back in the days when it was still safe to be a couple of blocks lakeside from St. Charles, I'd pass rundown Uptown Victorian houses with ancient Tea roses out front. Can't tell you the names, but the old teas (and very first Hybrid Teas) develop a quite pleasant and substantial architecture. They'd cheer me up, blooming well into December, on basically neglected plants. The Hybrid musk with which I grew up was 'Eutin'. My Grandmother had her two out beneath some Pecan trees. Even with the shade and the sap (and without pruning), they bloomed all summer. I remember a fragrance which traveled far from the plant, although the plant is not listed as being fragrant. The Growth habit is upright and awkward, though, and you will have to prune a lot. Eutin could once be spotted in humble gardens all over Mississippi. Personally, I've grown the Hybrid Musks Cornelia and Vanity. Vanity has a very open growth habit, shocking pink blooms, and healthy foliage. Cornelia matures into a huge mess of a shrub, with plenty of blackspot, but also plenty of vigor. The fragrance is up there with Hyacinth, Winter Honeysuckle, Frangipani, and Lemon Blossom...it's that wonderful. One spray will perfume a hospital room or an office. Grow it in your Kitchen Garden, where its big, messy ever-blooming self won't be an aesthetic disaster. Or plant it in the front yard (as I foolishly did, at an apartment building I owned), and spend all your waking hours pruning it.

My Ivor's Rose is in its fourth or fifth year from Ashdown, and it has stayed pretty small and wide like the rose in your picture. Certainly no more than 3', and closer to knee height than anything. I agree that it's nicely resistant to blackspot, though still not a very prolific bloomer for me. It seemed to be set back a bit by a typically cold winter a few years ago, but these past two mild winters haven't seen an increase in bloom. Of course, with our drought nothing bloomed last year, but it hasn't yet been a standout in my garden. Nice undemanding plant, but not showy yet in my experience. Cynthia

In my 6B zone Mutabilis is fine. Gets a little dieback but not much. My sister grows it here for more then 10 years, there were some really cold winters here during this period. It is at least 7x7 feet and I prune it for her each spring, taking approx 1/3 off. Gets BS and defoliates several times per summer, but continues to grow and bloom. I lived in Louisville for 2.5 years more then 15 years ago. I grew roses there too. Much friendlier climate for roses them MD in terms of BS and JBs in my opinion. Minimal temps, if I remember correct, are quite comparable between KY and my part of MD (North West of DC). Olga

Blooming in flushes sounds nice! I don't spray either. I don't mind a little black spot and my garden is really very casual and spread out and no one can see if from the street lol, so I'm not really that picky. Of course, if it was so bad that it affected the health of the plant so it couldn't bloom then I might reconsider. I've got a back acre on one side of the property that has absolutely nothing (garden wise) on it except some trees around the perimeters. It is kinda hideous right now with tangled brush, wild little trees that sprouted up, and stuff I need to clear out. I want to make some nice garden rooms with roses back there and I need some that can get large. There is a fence on only one side of it between us and the neighbor and the barn and well on the other side. The back, backs up to woods that belong to the city and they don't keep it up at all so its like some huge thicket. I am planting Mermaid along the back to keep out trespassers lol, but not sure what else. Do you have your Purple Skyliner in full sun?