Temecula gets pretty hot, so I would suggest afternoon shade if you can manage it. 6 hrs of sun would be plenty. Sun all morning followed by shade after 1 or 2 in the afternoon would be good. Afternoon shade would help preserve the color and the flowers wouldn't toast so badly in the heat of summer. There are big Austins (8'+) and smaller, more manageable ones, 5' or so. Try the smaller ones first. One major thing about Austins that is different than HTs is that a lot of them tend to be very floppy the first year or so. You get a lot of flowers face down in the mulch at first. That improves after a year or two. Also you may not get a lot of flowers the first year. That usually improves a lot as well. Good ones here in inland Orange County have been Tamora, Molineux, William Shakespeare 2000, Sophy's Rose, Ambridge Rose, Abe Darby, Jubilee Celebration, Perdita, Emmanuel, Fair Bianca, Glamis Castle, Prospero. If you just get one, I would try 'Jubilee Celebration'. It's a wonderful rose, great rebloom from the start, compact growth. It's a more compact version of Abe Darby in a lot of ways.

Longportliz, welcome to the Jersey Shore! I hope your move goes well and that you will enjoy your new home. I'm still relatively new to rose culture, but think you'll find your roses will do very well here. The sandy soil usually makes for excellent drainage, you just might have to amend with organic matter. You might want to start by taking a soil sample to your County Agricultural Extension Office for a free pH test, or purchase a kit to send some soil off to the Rutgers Soil Lab for a complete analysis ($15). There are some real rose experts here, though, and I'm hoping they'll post their advice soon. Newbie, I'm in Monmouth County also, and it certainly makes for interesting gardening. Here at home, only a few miles from the beach and across the street from a bay, the weather is considerably milder (winter and summer) than only 20 minutes away in the hills of Middletown (where I work). It's really important to get to know one's microclimate. I believe this being on the cusp is what makes it a difficult call for us. FWIW, I got my instruction from the curator of the rose garden where I bought my roses, a nursery in Zone 6 NY, and for them it's a more cut-and-dried 2-stage process: A rough pruning in early winter to prevent 1) wind-whipping (whereby the root ball gets loosened in the soil by strong winds rocking the plant), and 2) branch breakage from snow load. Then a fine pruning in early spring to shape the plant. Pruning out branches susceptible to snow load seems of particular concern here because of the wet, and hence heavy & sticky, snows we can get here. On the other hand, with our capricious weather, pruning during a mild winter, or before an extended warm spell, might cause the rose to put out new growth too early. Case in point: Almost all of my roses still have a fair number of green leaves and a few have new leaves growing, and I haven't even pruned yet! Longportliz, I'm going to have to check back myself and see how the local experts address your questions. Diane

Wait until spring to do any pruning because cutting them back now will trigger new succulent growth that could be damaged during freezes this winter. That said you may want to just let Abraham Darby be the short climber it wants to be by letting the long canes arch over (if you have the room) or tie them to a short trellis, although some people keep cutting it back to make it into a tall bush. Jude may throw out a long cane occasionally which you can cut back in the spring or summer. It is more likely to be happy as a bush than Abraham Darby. These are two of my favorite Austin roses, by the way. It may be that you have flower beetles rather than Japanese beetles. Both are a pain to have in the garden, but flower beetles are less of a pain I think. They are easier to control by hand picking and spraying the ground with beneficial nematodes in spring and summer to kill the grubs from which they hatch. After treatment with beneficial nematodes a couple of times I didn't have flower beetles (Euphoria sepulcralis, Fabricius) for years, but they turned up again last year so I treated again. You can google them to see what each beetle looks like. Here is the flower beetle on Prairie Sunrise last summer: Applying insecticides won't do much good for beetles, but unfortunately they will kill honey bees and other beneficial insects. You can buy beneficial nematodes at plant nurseries or on line. They will stay in the soil and do their jobs of killing a lot of unwanted insects that live in the soil like grubs, fleas and ants as long as the soil doesn't dry out. Here is a link that might be useful: How to Use Beneficial Nematodes

Bella mine have done pretty well for me here. I don't know the answer to own root vs grafted. Some of mine were new last year so too early to say much, although Christopher Marlow, Princess Alexandra of Kent, and Sharifa did really well for first year roses. Some that I've had for a while are GT, GC, Munstead Wood, Olivia Rose, Mary Rose, Scepter, Queen of Sweden. Of those, I think the best performers for me have been Scepter, Olivia, Mary, and MW. They pretty much all die to the ground over winter, but I don't do much in the way of winter protection. I really hope Christopher winters well, I got 2 and they had blooms pretty much all the time.