The very first question is: are the roses on rootstock that thrive in your soil? If your soil is shallow, or if the roots only thrive in a shallow cone of 'good' soil, then you're not going to get height, regardless of your zone. When the original poster buys a rose, he's buying a rose that has already been pampered beyond belief, in a green house or poly house, planted in soils that are totally unlike the real world, and fed the rosey equivalent of fois gras, lobster, and eclairs to make it grow. Nothing any of us can do inthe real world will equal that kind of pampering for twelve months of the year. Well, maybe some folks in California's cooler summer/warmer winters areas can approach it, but weather survival wasn't designed into the genetics of modern roses. Not all rootstocks are alike, some force roses to grow 12 months of the year, others may help dormancy happen. Some soils are better for Dr. Huey; other soils will make roses on R. multiflora wonderful plants; still other areas demand R. x fortuniana to overcome soil problems. About public gardens....go there earliest spring. Be sure you're comparing roses there with your own roses by starting to see if their roses made it through winter. We've been to some northern public gardens in early spring and I've been shocked at the number of roses that are replaced in a given year. It's not fair of you to evaluate your home roses by comparing them to roses that last year were in California, and only recently exposed to the last gasps of an Ohio winter. FWIW, I had a hedge of 24 Graham Thomases in east Tennessee. Their main problem was a tendency to put out spring growth early in spring, and that growth would get killed, dependably, by later spring freezes. That frozen growth would then be the locus of a nasty canker that would gird and kill the cane by mid June. The most cankers I have ever counted on a single cane was thirteen on one single cane of Graham Thomas. So, I'd guess Dave protects his GT.

There's one that holds in orange color and bloom doesn't shrink in size like Austins in the heat. It's 2007 Romantica Sweet Promise HT, bloom size is at least 4" in the heat. The scent is heaven: like apple blossoms - and is strong regardless of the weather. Sweet Promise has 19 buds/bloom in our 90 to 100 degrees heat. It's a 4-months old own-root. The bloom lasts 4 to 5 days in the vase, smell great to the end. Sweet Promise is completely thornless in the upper 3/4 of the bush. Leaves are red and shiny when young. The bush is pretty like Firefighter. Below is Sweet Promise, big orange bloom in the center. Honey Bouquet is lower left, huge bloom with great color. Golden Cel. is upper left - and the rest are Austins blooms that got smaller in summer heat. Krista from New York also confirmed my observation. She wrote: "Austins tend to have smaller blooms with a lower petal count in summer, they seem to share this characteristic with some of the antique roses to which they are akin."

I was watering it this morning....think it is probaby going to die before I have a chance to transplant it. One cane left, good leaves left but the cane has that "look" to it that tells me it is going to give it up. Actually....the flowers nod, blow. The only thing I like about it is the color. From the above comments - I will most definitely not replace it, and try Lady Emma instead. I adore Carding Mill, want another of those. Am trying Crown Princess Margareta and Lady of Shallot - too early to tell what those are going to do. Any thoughts on these? I love the Austin apricots.....I have Summer Song from Palatine but it isnt doing much. Long skinny canes, very little flowering this summer and the flowers were small but I only planted it last fall. The color is spectatular! I hope it will do the sleep, creep, leap thing.....anyone grow it?

I have both of them. Pat Austin repeats for me fairly regularly and is several years old, I think about five years now. It has a nice orange and yellow color, but the flowers do not take heat well. It just wilts in temps in the 90s. The bush want to get rather large. Port Sunlight is new for me this year. I had it in a pot, but I put it in the ground to be grown on a pillar. I suspect it will be tall. It is also on the spindly side, but still, it is only its first year. The color is a nice apricot, but it fades badly in the sun, almost as bad as Tea Clipper. The flowers are also little bigger than a miniflora rose. I had hoped for better. They do smell good, a plus. I will withhold judgment on this one pending a couple more growing seasons. Lady Emma Hamilton and Carding Mill are both more than viable alternates. They bloom regularly and have contained growth habits. Both are in the same general apricot/orange color groups, and both are fragrant. Also pending is Summer Song. One I have has not bloomed yet, and I am supposed to get two more. If you want in-your-face orange on manageable plants, the floribunda Impatient and the shrub Kordes' Brillant are also good choices.