Personally, I find roses to be high maintenance plants. Though beautiful when grown well, they are subject to numerous diseases and bugs. And like most perennials/shrubs, yes they will look scruffy if dead flowers and leaves are not removed. (Which then brings you to the "fun" of dealing with the thorns.) This is simply what one accepts with any flowering shrub. Have you considered Hibiscus syriacus, aka Rose of Sharon? If you are unfamiliar with them, it is a specie of winter hardy hibiscus. Without trimming, and depending on the cultivar they can get 6-10feet tall and most of the ones I've seen get about 3 or 4 ft wide. (The one at my folks' place in northern Michigan has never gotten over 7 ft and they have never trimmed it.) They come in whites, pinks, reds, lavenders, "blues" (which really aren't) and bullseyes (white or pink with a red bullseye in the middle). My sis has a beautiful pure white one which also has never gotten over 7ft tall. Neither she nor my folks have found it to be at all bug or disease prone, and hummingbirds like them. (If you'd really like to do this on the cheap, and if you don't mind waiting a few years, you can grow them from seed. The one at my folks' is one I started from seed. It's been a long time, but if memory serves, it reached 4 or 5 ft by its 3rd or 4th year.) Flowers only last a day or two but healthy happy plants produce new flowers most of the summer into fall.

Growing roses from cuttings is a fine addiction and yours look very healthy. You spoke of rose sports and I have a Moon Shadow that is gorgeous but won't propagate at any method. I finally found a healthy rooting sucker or sport that is growing well but still small with thin canes but we'll see. My question for you is, I've kept my roses tall this year five plus because something is eating all the lower leaves, up to two ft, of the tops. It breaks my heart to see empty canes or flowers that were just ready to open totally gone. The backyard is at the base of a mountain covered with trees. In the front of the house all my roses are tall and flourishing .I'm always experimenting and in the kitchen windowsill have the base of a stalk of celery, some carrots and green onions all rooting well and begging to go outside in the dirt. Now if I put these in a large container close to the roses next to the gazebo which are being eaten, would you think the animals would get into the veggies instead of harming my roses. Poisons, systemics,animal be gone junk, electric devices, sour milk and Tabasco, nothing is working. These aren't big animals, just rats under my gazebo which love to thrive on poison and sometimes squirrels and rabbits.

Thanks for posting a photo of your Knock-out wall; that's a really nice use of KO. About 15 years ago, I had a good HT garden in New Haven by rotating Banner-Max and Immunox. Now we reside in a latitude that allows me to grow antique teas and I don't spray a thing. I'm sorry that you're not getting better results with Bayer Advanced. Perhaps there are roses you simply shouldn't grow. Sorry. The White Flower Farm catalog shows a couple of Easy Elegance roses that you should consider for your second wall. [Yes, I know that WFF prodeucts are over-priced but the catalog is my favorite winter garden porn so I order a few things each year to stay on the mailing list]. Take a look at EE Coral Cove and EE Yellow Submarine. I haven't grown either but EE is a good series of roses and both are the appropriate size for your wall. Good luck -- and please post more photos of your gardens. TIA.

Nancy My hedge is along the side of my house, I believe there are probably around 12-15 (I don't remember how many I bought) Louis Philippe spaced 4 feet apart. With some rooting hormone you could take cuttings and start them from the plant you have, but on Ebay and other places this rose is available fairly inexpensively in 2 inch pots or if you want your hedge to mature more quickly you could invest in gallons. I needed a hedge because the city put a sidewalk to the high school on the side of my property after I moved in and lots of high school students walk back and forth. The hedge is perfect for some privacy. The roses were planted around 4 feet apart and the roses have grown into each other so the hedge is fairly dense. They get by with very little care and are vigorous and fragrant. The blooms are small, only a few inches across, but there are lots of them. It is early in the season but I have a few blooms now. And because there are rarely freezes here, the hedge is leafy year around. When I first got them as tiny plants I did see to it that they were watered and mulched but they started growing quickly and after a while they were on their own except for fertilizing once or twice a year when I think of it. It was the perfect choice for me. I live on the Texas Gulf coast so there is plenty of humidity and there are plenty of bugs but these roses don't seem affected by any of that. I checked on Ebay there is a vendor selling 20 two inch pots for $50 plus shipping, here is the listing number if you want to look it up: 201707380237 You may have to trim the top annually with a hedge saw, I have trimmed my hedge twice with rose shears. Here is a picture of Louis Philippe in Florida (scroll down, it is under the opening page) Louis Philippe