I would love to try my hand a roses! I don't think I have anything on your want list but I have very large Crinum Lily 'White Prince', Crinum Lily, Hannibal's Dwarf, Neomarica caerulea - Blue Walking Iris, Drimiopsis kirkii, "Spotted Scilla", or you are welcome to check my page. Thanks! Lisa

On second thought I would recommend a different venue. If you want black spot resistant roses try either some of the Bucks noted for bs resistance or check out Palatine roses' website for the new disease resistant Kordes roses. If you are new to roses, I would recommend Palatine because they deliver huge bare roots that will do well in their first year. Then check out Chamblee's for Buck's - those will be one gallon potted plants and will need time to mature but how soon they mature also depends on the variety. I rooted a Folksinger cutting last winter and by the end of the growing season it was 4' tall. On the other hand, I got Quietness as a rooted seedling beforehand and it is still about 2'. I know that the mature height of Quietness is about 5'. Earth Song is said to be blackspot free, great bloomer and fragrant but I have no idea how fast it will mature - I just got it from Chamblee's. But again, to those who just start with roses I recommend to get great quality grafted plants to have satisfaction of growing roses relatively fast. You could also check out Pickering nurseries, they also list a large number of disease resistant roses. http://www.pickeringnurseries.com/ I would suggest a rose you didn't mention and that is Compassion - healthy, fragrant, good repeat and gorgeous. It is a climber but I grow it as a large shrub. Here is a link that might be useful: Palatine roses

I was mistaken!! To all (and sundry) who have given so much advice on pruning what I thought was a QE, I apologize! I DO have a glorious hybrid pink rose which did reach 8' this year! But! I realize now I don't know Who she is. I've looked at mine vs QE and there are too many differences. Some while ago, I began filling in a check list from the American Rose Society to see if it was a known rose but I've never gotten around to completing it. I've added a few photos to share with Pink Rose fans! I just don't have any recent ones showing her height this year and I've pruned back a bit after the first blooms faded .

I've had a little more time to research this topic, but still may not have the final answer. As best I can tell, the rose as the queen of flowers dates back to Greek/Roman mythology--namely, the stories about Chloris who was called Flora by the Romans. Usually she is considered the goddess of springtime. Part of her story is famously told by Ovid (43 BC Â 17 AD) who notes she was raped by the West Wind (Zephyr) who then married her and pronounced her in charge of all the flowers. In some versions, that translates as "Queen of the Flowers"--but there's the hitch. "Translates." I can't read Ovid in the original, so I don't know if he actually called her that, or if the "queen of flowers" is an English phrasing of Ovid. There is also a second story about Chloris transforming a dead nymph into the first rose, but I can't determine where that story comes from--maybe Ovid also. At any rate, the summary version given repeatedly on the internet is as follows: Chloris is said to have created the first rose. Walking one day in her garden, she came upon a lifeless nymph in a clearing surrounded by forest. She decided to change the girl into a flower to preserve her beauty. Chloris beseeched Aphrodite for help, and the Goddess of Love was kind and gave the nymph a portion of her beauty; Dionysus, the God of Wine, then gave a drop of nectar to give her a pleasurable fragrance, and The Three Graces gave her allure, brilliance and elation. Zephyrus came and blew a clearing in the clouds so that Apollo, the Sun God, could shine upon the nymph and cause her to bloom. And so the Rose was born and was immediately crowned the Queen of Flowers. My main concern about that passage is that no one ever cites a source for it--it is just mindlessly repeated in pretty much the same words used above. So I don't know how authentic the story is or whose language is being used. It's kind of like the continual repetition of the words "queen of flowers" that supposedly Sappho uttered in a four-line verse. The only problem is that Sappho did not say that--that is not her verse. Moral of the story: Lies and errors will be endlessly repeated on the internet, but that doesn't make them any more true. If I had the time and interest, I could go to academic sources and find an excellent translation of Ovid, read it, and thus verify how much of this story is Ovidean--and check several academic commentators on that translation to find out how other experts view it, etc. In other words, this mystery could probably be tracked down--but I don't care to take that much time to confirm the answer, so . . . . Well, at least I tried. Hope that helps someone else pick up the trail. Kate Here is a link that might be useful: Chloris, Queen of Flowers