I'm NOT in a tropical climate -- far, far drier. But what Nik said: nikthegreek(9b/10a E of Athens, Greece) What the roses may find stressful as plants is not the heat or humidity but the lack of winter coolness That rang true for me. While not tropical, here in coastal Southern California, we also have No Winter Chill. In that situation, Austin roses that were perfectly well-behaved elsewhere morphed here into Jolly Green Giants ... growing 12- 14-ft. tall, and blooming only at the very top. If we cut them down, they responded by hunkering down and growing back to 12-ft., to produce one large bloom or cluster. After a few seasons of that, we had to acknowledge the advice we had received that these were not the ideal roses for our conditions. We still grow a few Austins . . . Golden Celebration is great here (but would blackspot for you). Prospero is one of my all-time favorites, as is Belle Story, and my DH loves Cymbaline.

Of the ones on your list I have Veteran's Honor, Bride's Dream, St. Patrick, Paradise, Over the Moon, Ebb Tide, and had Neptune and Perfect Moment. Perfect Moment and Neptune both perished after that bad Easter 07 freeze, and I had problems with Perfect Moment wintering over anyway at my other house. Although it is flamboyantly colored, it is not fond of winter. Neptune did not do all that well for me. It was marginal here. I have seen it elsewhere along the coast and in pictures from others living near the coast somewhere, and to me it looks like it likes a coastal climate with some kind of ocean air influence. My St. Patrick is only now blooming for the first time this year because it took a hard hit over winter. It doesn't like winter either, but it likes the heat, or so we would be led to believe. Paradise has done reasonably well for me. It is a nice rose overall and one of my favorite lavenders. Veteran's Honor is a good, solid red rose. Just don't be surprised if its first flowers after planting are off-color. Sometimes they are pink to begin with, but they come out red later on with plant maturity. My Over the Moon was just put out this year and hasn't done a lot, but the flowers it has had have been okay. I think it just needs time and cooler weather. Bride's Dream resembles Royal Highness, its parent. The flowers are almost indistinguishable in appearance. However, Royal Highness is fragrant while Bride's Dream isn't very fragrant. Bride's Dream outblooms Royal Highness normally. Bride's Dream is also less winter-tender. Ebb Tide is a purple color, but the purple is variable with the weather. In cooler temps it is more purple while in hot weather it is more burgundy to red. This is not unusual for the mauve/purple/lavenders in hot weather. I hope my two cents worth helps.

Hello, Ingrid! I've been meaning for days to add my bit to this discussion, but during these short days I'm really sleepy in the evenings. This evening I had to take a sick cat ten miles to the vet, and I guess it woke me up. Anyway..... First, I agree with everyone else that you need to keep the roots cool, and a good organic mulch is important for that. And I agree that some way to retain water in the soil is important. I'm blessed with clay: while it's sometimes a mixed blessing, it is marvelously water retentive. I don't know how your soil behaves, but you've heard a lot from people who've had to deal with this problem. I always read with wonder when American forumers curse their trees and the shade they produce. This is not a problem here, believe me. I love trees and shrubs: they cool the air, break the wind, and provide organic matter that enriches the soil. I'm busy planting trees and shrubs and expect them to help my roses a lot. Naturally roses need their sun and root space, but in your situation thoughtfully placed shrubs might be useful. Different trees have different kinds of roots. I loathe elms, which behave exactly as Maurizio describes; but flowering ashes and oaks, for example, are deep-rooted trees that don't go wandering about, and they do quite nicely around gardens. This is perhaps more of an academic question in your situation, but I wonder how much water roses can take without rotting, and I think it may be quite a lot. My sister, a garden designer and lifelong gardener, thinks that they're relatively tolerant of flooding, for example. I have some roses in the middle of an intermittent drainage that has stayed moist since May and has flooded twice, and the roses are thriving. However, I lost some Gallicas that were already doing badly that were in very poor, heavy soil, and I think it was the five straight weeks of rain in late spring that did them in completely. A lot of this is just repeating what others have said, and if my comments have any value it comes from the summer we had this year: no rain and very little irrigation for four months; full sun; strong winds for months on end. Our roses almost all lived, and in fact they didn't even suffer terribly. (They didn't flower much, but I didn't expect them to: we get a good fall flowering if we get some rain in August-September.) My guess is that if we can grow roses in those conditions, you can too. The other thing I wanted to say is this. No matter how much you read and study, and no matter how much excellent advice you get, making a garden is very much a trial-and-error business. That's because no one's conditions are exactly like yours and so no one can tell you exactly what will work. This is the glory and the frustration of gardening. You're in that first stage where you've tried a lot of things and found out that a lot of them haven't worked, though some have been successful. Now you'll try different things and will find some more things that don't work, and some more things that DO. In time you'll become the world's greatest expert on your own garden; and your garden will be beautiful. Melissa

The bloom opened. Pretty flower: loosely quartered (similar to Comte de Chambord), lightly fragrant, and clear lilac*. Good, strong stem. The color and fragance was disappointing but this is a first year own root plant. I'll give it another year or two for the plant to mature before making a final judgment. The plant itself is still tiny, but bigger than four other own roots in the same pot ghetto. Only the Bourbon DUEL DE DR. REYNAUD is bigger, and it is a climber. It is also one of the few babies that has foliage. I don't spray the roses in my pot ghetto because I want to be able to accurately access their black spot resistance before planting. You'd be surprised at how many of the babies never make it into the beds. * I define lilac as lavender with a noticeable pink undertone.