Fairy (and its offsprings, Lovely Fairy, Fairy Queen, Crystal Fairy etc) and Bonica are the only roses that fairly well could be called desease resistant in my garden.
I don't grow Knockout, but it also reportedly don't need spraying against deseases.
However, I don't know a rose that will be not vulnerable to insects damage, thus insecticide spraying might be required nevertheless.
Actually one more desease resistant rose I could think of is a Belinda's Dream, but I couldn't recommend it since for 3 years I have it I can't find a right place where we both will be happy. Too much sun -blooms fried, rain- blooms balling and never open or become dirty toilet paper, less sun - it doesn't rebloom well. However the first flush is to die for:

I agree with Bonica, The Fairy, and the Knockouts (I have Blushing KO) also Martha's Vineyard and Pretty Lady have done well for me without spraying. New Dawn is also reported to be very disease resistant, but I haven't had mine long enough to report on it.

I was just over in the Rose forum reading a thread about favorite zone 5 roses (which is probably a good target zone for Z6 too)

favorite zone 5 roses

Yes, there are extremely low maintenance roses that will thrive in New England. They are the Canadian Explorer Roses some of which are 'William Bafflin', 'John Cabot', 'Champlain', 'Henry Kelsey', and 'John Davis'. There are others, as well. These roses are virtually carefree...no disease, no insects. Only drawbacks are that they are, for the most part, once blooming (June) and have little fragrance. An exception that I'm willing to say with certainty is 'Champlain'. In our gardens, it bloomed from mid-June through Thanksgiving non-stop. If you have the room, 'William Bafflin' is, IMO, the greatest rose for NE gardens...never had any dieback and never needed pruning...plant and enjoy! It's a strawberry pink semi-double that blooms in clusters of 20-30 blossoms in mid-June. Ours were, I'm not exaggerating here, 9' tall..we had two..one planted on either side of a swing and we trained them to arch over the top of the swing. Spectacular! So many flowers when the petals dropped the grass turned pink from all the petals...I loved that. They also held up well to spring rain. I've grown all of the ones I mentioned above and strongly recommend each of them. They can be a little tricky to locate but I know that Newbury Perennials carries them in May but are usually sold out quickly. Others here may know of more places to locate them.

The Canadian Explorer roses were bred near Montreal. It's by far the biggest rose breeding program close to our climate. Near-species rugosas also tend to do well. Other than that, it goes pretty much from cultivar to cultivar. Some are very good, like Seafoam. Most stink.

If you have some idea of what you want the rose to do, color, size, etc. it will be easier to narrow it down. I will warn you that yellows can be difficult. The two genetic sources for healthy yellow roses are a group of very early once bloomers, and the very tender teas. You can ask on the rose forum, but ignore any responses west of Pennsylvania. It's much drier out there, and the blackspot pressure isn't nearly as great.

BTW, I don't consider Bonica disease resistant.

Re: Champlain.
I agree that this rose is a blooming machine. Sometimes I even think that it rather wants to bloom instead of grow. I have 3 of them and they all stay in 3' range for the last 4 years.
However, the last two years they contracted severe powdery mildew sometime in a middle of a season and I'm having problem to cure it.
Re: Bonica.
As with all other plants personal experience could be widely variable. Mine in a location that would call for all kind of funguses: overhead watering, poor (actually none) air circulation, white gravel above the mulch and still I have yet to see a sign of BS or PM on it.
Hope I din't jinx it. LOL.

Another great rose that you either love or hate is the Iceberg. I know, I know a lot of people call it BS/PM magnet, but so far (4 years) it stays absolutely clean even in a bad years.

That said I do spray ALL of my roses in early spring by horticultural oil.

I would hesitate to call Champlain or William Baffin "low maintenance". Yes WB is very hardy to the tips, but grows like mad and suckers all over. High-maintenance if you want to keep it contained size-wise. No black spot, but lots of anthracnose.

Champlain also lots of anthracnose. Yes a red blooming machine, very hardy, but not always disease-resistant like they claim. Does stay in manageable size, though (3').

I grow mostly Austins, which I would not claim are low maintenance, but give me less trouble than Explorers. Sad to say, I shovel pruned all my Champlains and WBs except for one WB that I am thinking about getting rid of as well.

My William Baffin blooms once, and isn't particularly attractive the rest of the season. I planted it last year in a prominent position, and will probably be moving it. No black spot to report, though.

The ones I named in my previous post above bloomed all summer with only a short break in between flushes.

Thanks for all the advice so far, I'm taking notes. I can't upload a photo of the spot, this darn new computer is driving me crazy! Anyway the place where I'm thinking of planting it is on the south side of the house. It's a very hot, dry location that I hand water. The soil is loose and well drained, sandy at the top and dense glacial till below about 18". I could amend the soil if necessary. There's lots of air movement. It will be against the side of the house but it's a solarium, all windows. There's lots of room so something fairly big, up to maybe 8-10 would be fine. The house is brick red so a dark pink or anything purplish would be less desirable. I guess white would be best, but I'm certainly open to suggestions for colors.

'There's lots of room so something fairly big, up to maybe 8-10 would be fine.'

Not exactly maintenance free, but I see how something like DA 'Falstaff' fits there. It grow tall 8-12' canes that are pliable (when young) and easy to peg, so you could have large arching structure that blooms on a zillions of lateral branches. 'Falstaff' itself would prefer some afternoon shade, otherwise flowers will fade pretty fast and it's reddish-purple that is not what you'd like to see there, but maybe something else from the DA collection, perharps 'A. Darby' or 'G. Thomas' should work.

A. Darby is beautiful! DA is Austin?

I can't stress enough that this area roasts during the afternoon, I wish I could post the photo so you could see how fried it is! Maybe I should focus on roses that will tolerate hot afternoon sun. I'm trying not to be too picky as far as colors and habits because I know my conditions are not ideal.

I'm having a great time Googling all these gorgeous roses! I can see how one could get addicted!

The roses forum is a really good place to hang out for a while. There's also an organic roses forum. A great site to look at pics of roses is HelpMeFind.com.

Here is a link that might be useful: HMF

If area is 'fried' in afternoon and the only way to water it is by handwatering, then you are looking for a high maintenance if you decide to put roses there.
May I try to redirect you?

Physocarpus (ninebark) 'Diabolo' underplanted with any caryopteris (probably gray leafed 'Longwood Blue' will be better than any of the dark green leafed cultivars) will give you the low maintenance drough tolerant attractive planting in your dimensions. Throw some spring flowering bulbs that would prefer to be dry in a summer (fritillarias, tulips and even some daffodils), maybe some late peonies or spireas for June bloom and you'll have whole season interest bed.

Agree with EGO. No rose would be "low maintenance" in that situation.

I kind of knew the answer to this question I think!! Thank you George and Veilchen for stating the obvious! maybe when the tree in that area gets large enough to provide some shade I can rethink things.

I ordered a caryopteris for that area, and I could certainly be persuaded to buy another 'Diablo' like the one I got at HD for $3.33! Thank you everyone for your ideas, I am going to use the suggestions to choose roses to plant along the fence instead.

You might want to try some rugosas-they are pretty disease resistant, and in fact resent being sprayed. I have 2 'Hansa' rugosas that have the most lovely blooms. They are surrounded by 2 Alba Meidilands (shrub roses) that are relatively short, spreading roses with millions of tiny blooms that last most of the season. Mine are blooming their heads off right now. You also might want to try some species roses. I have glauca and virginiana-both single pinks with no bug or disease problems.

Here is a link that might be useful: Alba Mediland-last year. They are twice as big this year

In my experience David Austins are very high maintenance - of course I've only ever bought them bare root -- so I guess if you bought them as bigger potted roses they wouldn't need to be coddled as much.
I have a William Baffin that is 9 feet tall, reblooms in late July/Early August -- but did get Black Spot early this Spring when it wouldn't stop raining. It was the first time I had Black Spot on any of my roses.
Knock out is very resistant -- shade tolerant and relatively drought-resistant (for a rose). I use Knock-Outs as ground-cover roses in my front yard, where the hose doesn't reach, so they depend on me remembering to water them.
But even if you are growing organically, there are things that you can use to keep disease, bugs and weeds away. I am allergic to most of the chemical sprays and have great success with things that I got from the Gardens Alive catalog. (I don't work for them, I'm just giving my seal of approval -- for what it's worth)

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden's Alive

I'd definitely say rugosas. I have some that I got as seedlings from the state extension service. It was like $3 for 12 seedlings. I don't water them, I only fertilize them when I'm doing the rest of the garden.

The Japanese Beetles think the rugosas are for them to eat and have orgies on, and still the roses grow and grow. The only "special maintenance" that I have to do with the rugosas I have in full sunlight is to prune them.

In 10 years they've gotten to where they're invading my front walkway. The others that I planted (in part shade) are still fairly small and wimpy. So, special maintenance I'd say prune, feed once in a while, and put in full sun (oh yeah, and get rid of the bugs, if you can).

The roses in full sun are the only ones I reliabley get blooms on as well.

I agree that David Austins are not a good place to start.

For climbers, nothing beats the old standards 'Blaze' or 'Golden Showers' for ease and repeat bloom. They'll live about anywhere that roasts as long as the soil is moisture retentive.

There are also the Meidilands. They have a more spreading habit and are extraordinarily disease/insect resistent.

Martie