Belinda's Dream really is a great choice. Especially if you want fragrant, perfectly shaped roses. She's the one that got me hooked. It was my first rose here in South Florida (I have since gotten another one) and I now have over 50 roses in my garden. I grow them all in containers though because I don't have garden space in full sun. BD has been a no spray dream and is always full of buds and blooms. Thrips do like her, but her blooms are so full you wont even see the thrip damage when she opens. Another really good choice is Duchess De Brabant. She has smaller less formal flowers but very delicate and she is no fuss. My knock outs have not done that well. They do bloom alot but the flowers are small and not neatly formed with no fragrance so they are just boring to me. Try Quietness. She's also a beauty and easy to grow. I've also had luck with Mr. Lincoln (though it grows gangly, but still blooms even with black spot). Joseph's coat is doing well too this year despite its first two years of being down-right-ugly. About Face is doing superb as well. She's had BS in the past, but seems to have outgrown it. Olympiad and Love rose have also done well for me as well as Gold Medal, perfume delight and All American Beauty. I've also had luck with Huntington Rose and Jubilee Celebration from David Austin and alot of the Kordes roses have done well for me too (the fairy tale series). But they are all in their first season so its hard to tell what will happen. Spraying is a real b*tch, but almost a requirement if you are growing HT roses here. I spray mine but only when absolutely totally necessary (like when i hear there's going to be a week of non stop rain). Otherwise I just let them get black spot (hand pick off the infected leaves to limit the spreading in the summer and do my hard pruning in the fall. Once October comes around you can pretty much get away with not spraying at all until May :) If you grow them in containers they require a little more work. You have to water more often and feed regularly, but its worth the work. You wont have to worry so much about soil conditions, nematodes etc and you can move your roses around so they get the optimal amount of sun during the changing seasons. So it has its pluses and drawbacks. If you want to grow them in the ground, make sure to get them grafted on fortuniana rootstock. That's the only way your roses can survive for more than 6 years in the ground here. Make sure you amend your soil with store bought top soil (miracle grow makes one especially for roses) at the very least. Dr Huey roots will do well too, but they may only live to about 5 years. (most store bought roses are on Dr. Huey) Then again, roses in our climate live much shorter lives since they never go dormant in the winter, so either way they don't have long life spans. Pruning them hard once a year helps them to go somewhat dormant and will help them become bushier healthy plants. Even if we don't have freezes. Good luck!

I'm doing a lot of propagating in pots and rain is a real problem. Even though I think I have a well drained potting mix it still stays wet too long for the babies. I have been putting them under cover when I know it is going to rain. I am going to have to make a special spot for them so they can get the sun and I can control how much water they get. My larger succulents don't have quite the issues as the starts but I have lost some nice plants due to rot.

Hi - I guess this discussion is still open to futher discuccsions? If so, I would like to say that for the past 2 years I did not know what was the matter with my white CM. I have 2 that where 1 foot tall when I planted them 16/17 years ago. I got them at home depot in South Alington as that is where I live. I read about home cures and they did not work. So I resorted to heavy duty sprays that worked for a while but the mist that fell on other scrubs killed them as well.. So I plunder on. After winter was over, and the first good day last Febuary, I got out the saw and cut my White CM back so far I hurt me to look at what I had did. I when to Home Depot and spoke to the a lady gardner as waus advised to use Bayer on everything incuding my Roses. Thus I have done. Roses are good now (had to cut back the climing one) and the CM are starting to push out the leaves and small branches. I walk out and inspect them almost every day since Febuary as well as the Roses and also my burr oak in the back yard as well as the two rose of sharons that have not bloomed once since I have had them, now 4 years, as the bug eat the new leave and the buds. I think now I have gone thru 2 bottles of Bayer. Only problem I have now it some little bug is eating new leaves on the rose brush's again, stripped them down to the vains and the branchs, I sprayed again last week before all the rain, and now I'm getting new leaves again. I'm new to all of this so the bug or scale on the cm seems like it kills every thing. Two familys on our neighborhood have cut down ther tall CM and did not treat them.. 2 others have cut down 15' foot tall trees in their yards. I'n not cutting down totaly if I can help it. Thanks you all for posting here. I had forgotten about this web site until tonight when I had to request help to log on agian. ....reb

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