Not Zephirine. She mildews and blackspots here so badly the foliage isn't green at all.

The repeat blooming New Dawn is hard to beat. William Baffin is healthy and hardy, but I don't much care for the flowers.

Um ... is Old Blush hardy in your area? that wouldn't be my guess but it's not an issue where I am.

Two questions first:

Are you looking for a particular color range in your climber's flowers or will any color do?

How important is fragrance to you?

I've been recently eyeing Jacob's Robe -- yellow blend with pink flushes and stripes. According to a number of sources I was reading, it has good disease resistance. If I had an open spot for a climber, I sure as heck would be trying it.

Kate

Here is a link that might be useful: Jacob's Robe at helpmefind

Well...Old Blush might be marginal. But it could be a micro-climate zone 7, protected by the rock wall. As far as color, I like shades of pink. Fragrance....not too imoportant as nobody will be walking close to it, being at the back of a wide border. Size of the flowers is not important as long as there are a lot of them and is either continuous or reblooming (tho continuous is not too likely with our summer heat). Most important is disease resistance. Long canes are ok as it will be on the top of the rock wall. Still looking at Peggy Martin, or Pinkie, maybe.

I have had Clair Matin, Viking Queen, and Parade all recommended to me. All should be hardy for you.

Of the climbers that I have, Too Hot to Handle is the overall best one. It has huge sprays, when happy, of single, scarlet flowers frequently during the growing season. The other nice ones are Polka for the largest flowers and Constellation with flowers like hybrid teas. I am sure there are plenty of others also.

How about cl Cecil Brunner? Does it really get as big as I've heard it does? Illusion is another one I've heard about, O cam live with dark red if it is a good one.

If you get info. about Peggy Martin or Climbing Pinkie, you might also want info. about Renae. That's another climber people who like Climbing Pinkie seem to like. You'll have the same questions about cane hardiness with Renae as the other two.

How are you about bicolor roses, or striped ones?

Hybrid Musk roses often rebloom on arching canes that might work very well trailing along a stone wall, even if they aren't necessarily textbook "climbers" like New Dawn & Viking Queen are. Many of them also have a reputation for tolerating less than full sun. Depending upon your aesthetic they may even work better than the climbers with larger flowers (since they often have clusters of smaller rose flowers that more closely resemble wild roses.)

Here's a link to the Hybrid Musks as described on the HelpMeFind Roses database.

If the bicolor roses are in the pink range, possibly. I'm not particularly fond of striped ones, tho. I do have a yellow climber elsewhere and don't really want another one. This particular corner needs a lot of color on the wall which is why I was going for a pretty good pink.

I know little about hybrid musk roses, but it seems like I remember from Ballerina that they are prone to black spot, and I'm not sure that they are going to get canes long enough to cover a 20' length along the top of the wall. They are pretty tho. I'll check them out some more before I decide.

As you can see from the photo in my blog post, that wall just cries out for a rose to smother it!

Here is a link that might be useful: Welcome to Chaos

Wm Baffin is a neon dark pink and singlish flowers, no fragrance whatsoever. And I would say its thorns would give New Dawn a run for the money. They are rugosa-like thorns. And WB tends to just get huge and take over. In your zone you have much better choices.

New Dawn is much prettier but hardly ever repeats for me.

My favorite climbers are the once-bloomers, mostly OGRs. It is really hard to find a good, repeat-blooming climber north of zone 7. My OGRs are very fragrant and gorgeous, and pretty disease-resistant.

If you want bullet-proof disease resistance in a climber, the once-blooming ramblers are the best way to go. No repeat bloomer I have can compete with the number of flowers (and the fragrance!) that I get with Leontine Gervais, or Alberic Barbier, or Paul Transon ... I couldn't possibly forget Arcata Pink Globe (stunning!) ... I could go on and on. There are SOOO many to choose from.

Since you want repeat, chemical-free maintenance, and Zone 6 hardiness, your choices diminish considerably. Let me suggest Climbing Pinkie as one alternative. In the garden here, the foliage has above average disease resistance, few thorns, lovely pink flowers in a huge spring flush, with scattered summer bloom and a moderate fall flush.

Do not plant Zephirine Drouhin if you have any sort of blackspot pressure. She will be completely naked by July.

Peggy Martin is another rose that I really like. My PM is 4 years old and I get a huge spring flush and, in the last two years, scattered flowers throughout most of the year. The foliage is very disease resistant. Peggy Martin and Climbing Pinkie want to make mounds, so growing them on a stone wall may be perfect.

A more mannerly, stiff climber that hasn't been mentioned here, that may do well without fungicide, is Compassion. It was a star in my fall garden, with huge clusters of flowers and healthy, dark green leaves. I'm on the colder end of Zone 7a, and Compassion does well for me ... so does Parade, for that matter.

One more suggestion that just came to mind is White Cap. Good disease resistance, beautiful white flowers, sweet scent, and not too rampant in its habit. It's a great rose.

HTH,
Connie

So many good suggestions! I've looked at each and every onoe but I still haven't made up my mind, maybe I haven't met the perfect rose yet. I may still try Peggy Martin or Pinkie, tho it appears Pinkie needs old growth cut out in spring and blooms best on new wood. Unfortunately, experience with either of these two seems to be lacking in zone 6b so I don't know what will happen with them, even tho they are both rated for zone 6.

I do like the once-blooming ramblers but I have all I want of those and their thorns already.

I hope I don't give in to my customary lack of judgement and plant Cl. Cecile Brunner! I did plant lily of the valley, after all, haha. (I'm still paying for that mistake!)

Thank you all so much for your good suggestions. I may have to find places to plant some of them anyway. If anyone else has any more good ideas, please feel free to let me know!

I have the same problem with New Dawn. I'm going for it and putting her where her thorns may not be optimal, but darnit she's carefree and gorgeous :)

If you are into sherbet tones, Royal Sunset may be hardy enough (dunno) and definitely has hips. Lots of bloom, gorgeous and hips. Great fragrance, too. May take a while to make 15', but unless she's not as hardy as I imagine, she will. I'm in z7a-7b, though, so there's only so much I can tell about hardiness.

Another you may be interested in is Andenken an J Diering -- surprisingly easy care! No hips that I know of yet, and no scent that I can tell. But she's very pretty and completely carefree so far. I've read various reports of her eventual height, so she may not be tall enough for you? It's hard to say. But she's hardy and easy and very pretty.

If you have a good specimen of Eden, that might work nicely. Still not quite continuous or as disease-free, imho.

I love Renae, too. Lovely rose.

If she's hardy enough, check out Cl Clotilde Soupert, too. Easy, amazing scent, always in flower and can get very tall. She balls for some folks, though. I love her!

None of these are as bad thorn-wise as New Dawn.

Thank you, Meredith! I looked them up, Andenken is a climbing HT so probably not as I am really looking for a polyantha type. Clotilde maybe, tho, but she is another zone 6 rated plant so borderline just like the other two.
I might have to get all three polyanthas and plant them three feet apart on the wall and see who survives! I thought about Renae too..it is a parent of Pinkie, I think, not reliably hardy. If only we were one more 1/2 zone south!