Rugosa Roses need mostly sunshine in the day. They require little else except good drainage. They don't need to be sprayed (in fact don't like to be) and you can prune them back anytime. Our Rose Society does not recommend pruning this type of rose back to the ground, but you can if you need to it won't kill the bush. They mostly grown between 4-10 ft high. Some can be used as climbers. They can have invasive offshoots if they are not taken out. They are not like the multiflora that are very invasive and sprout up everywhere. Rugosa can be a very good rose for people who want shrubs that bloom all the time with no extra work.Keep them in the sun and they should be fine. There are several varieties that stay about 4-5 ft tall. I have about 15 Rugosa bushes and they make a great hedge for me. They smell is wonderful as I walk down my driveway.

My climate is not anything like yours (I live in eastern Washington) but I have had good luck with old fashioned shrub roses (mainly once blooming) and some hybrid musks and polyanthas (repeat blooming). I do have two yellow knock out roses (from Lowe's sale) with pink edges...and they fade to an ivory as they age. They're very pretty and I really like them. I think they look great, mixed in with lavender and pink perennials...and maybe cosmos and stock (annuals). Celsiana is one of my favorite old fashioned shrub roses. It's a damask and it blooms for a long time...four to six weeks. Here's a picture (not mine) that inspired me to get Celsiana. From Lavender's Garden Echo (Baby Tausendschon) from Rogue Valley Roses is a pretty little rose, too. I don't know how it is with humid conditions, but it does very well, in my garden. This is my picture :) From Lavender's Garden

woolywoof, your availability of hardy roses probably has more to do with being in Canada than being in zone 4. If I head to nurseries in zone 4 New York, the situation is likely to be even more dire than it is here. Lack of availability of roses that do what I want roses to do is probably part of the reason I became so interested in rooting cuttings. Several wonderful roses are probably better known as pass along plants than in the nursery trade. This unfortunately doesn't make me a very good source of information as to where you should get your roses. I've bought more roses from Mike Lowe than any other source. He's in Nashua. Is Mike still in the nursery business? I don't know. Pickering, as mentioned, is a good source. I know Paul has gotten a bunch of his roses from Spring Valley in Wisconsin. I've heard nothing but good things about Spring Valley. I've often wanted to order from Corn Hill in New Brunswick, but never come up with a big enough order to make it work out. Corn Hill is Robert Osborne's nursery. If you don't have his book "Hardy Roses" you should. You should also have Suzanne Verrier's books. You want to avoid the nurseries that ship little twigs. For the money nurseries charge, you want them to send you a real plant. I'd like to be able to recommend Ashdown, but I've never ordered from him. Oddly enough, most of my recent purchases have come from Sequoia. Certainly Ralph Moore has no reason to specialize in hardy for the northeast roses, but he does have some neat oddments that I can't get anywhere else. He ships little twigs, but at least the price reflects this.

How long have they been in the fridge? Are they in damp paper towel? I have no personal experience with rugosa seeds but I do my seeds in the damp towels and after they've been in the fridge for about 4 weeks I start checking them. That's the earliest I've ever had any germinate. The peak time is usually between 6 and 8 weeks in the fridge. And they will germinate in the towels in the fridge. Once you see the little root popping out of the seed coat you can plant them in a seed starter tray in seed starter soil, not potting soil, with the root down in the soil and the seed head up. Keep the lid on the starter tray to keep the humidity up around them. Drying out is the kiss of death. Put them under lights if they can't go outside in the sun yet. If they're indoors you want the lid of the tray to nearly touch the light source. If they are too far away they'll get long and spindly. Once they get too tall to stay in the tray with the lid on and they have at least one set of true leaves, you can plant them up into cups with holes in the bottom or VERY small pots. Then gradually condition them to the outdoors as soon as possible. As soon as my night time temps are consistently above freezing I harden them off and they go outside in full sun for the rest of the season. There are many other ways of doing seeds too though. Some people take them out of the fridge after a while and just plant the seeds themselves into the seed starter trays and wait for them to germinate in there. Others just plant them right out into the ground. If you want more information about other methods do a search on here or on google. I'm sure you'll find lots of information! Seed germination Seed starter tray Lid on and close to the light source Planted up to cups Seedling nursery outside This is one of my seedlings from 2006 planted in my garden!