I live in Texas and love many of the Bucks mentioned - Quietness, Carefree Beauty, Earthsong, Prairie Breeze, Golden Unicorn, Folksinger, Pearlie Mae, Honeysweet [love the color on this one, unique!], Pipe Dreams, Square Dancer, Freckles, Countryman.....One I have not seen mentioned is Bright Melody. It is tall for me and blooms all the time with reddish blooms and is practically disease free. Sometimes I am regular with spraying, sometimes not.....this rose is always healthy. Also like Habanera, Malaguena......just pick some to try and see how they do. Chamblees has an excellent assortment. I am 2 hours from them and love to see their roses in bloom! Very healthy plants - reasonable prices.

Now that you mention it, I don't recall a dark pink Buck climber. Prairie Princess is a light pink and about the only Buck shrub/climber I know of (at Chamblee's). You piqued my interest- I did not see any listed on the ISU Buck rose site. They have a great history of his rose breeding program and its development. In fact, it appears he had the original "Earthkind" trials for his progeny of roses: only "water and cultivation". Here is a link that might be useful: Griffith Buck @ ISU

Prairie Star and Prairie Harvest are disease free (as foliage goes) here in coastal NC but one of them balled terribly when we got a sudden rain (sorry, don't remember which one). It is possible that it was not the rain but very dry winds or sudden thrips attack - in any case from a moment to another it turned to an ugly brown paper ball. Winter sunset as Michael mentioned last longer as cut flower than on the bush; it is very beautiful when it starts opening but blows fast on the bush if bloom left there. Maybe in a colder climate it would last longer. Here in the south, I am told, Earth song, a grandiflora, is one of the best and the most productive - healthy, has a gazillion of flowers, gives good and fragrant cut flowers and holds on to its flowers on the bush as well. It does not mean though that it will behave the same way in Iowa. I love, love, love Quietness; it is pale pink. Simply gorgeous and smells very good. My smaller plants already gave me so many flowers that it was just amazing. Huge, many petaled blooms, supposedly good for cutting, too. I have Prairie sunrise. It was my first Buck rose, is a small rose even after 5 or 6 years. It is still under 3 or 3 and 1/2'. Not very productive in my opinion and here it gets blackspot. Too bad because I planted in a bed where I do not spray any other rose so this rose does not get sprayed either. Very beautiful though, I love the colors. And maybe in your climate it stays clean. (But, let me emphasize again, it is my smallest Buck rose.) PH or PS close to it has clean foliage and on the other side Quietness is also clean. Folksinger is a good repeater and it is apricot (my favorite color) , has clean foliage but the flowers blow fast but repeats fast. Many people love Golden Unicorn, I have one in pot but not in the ground; relatively new acquisition from Chamlee's. Have no personal experience of Hawkeye Belle; my understanding is that it performs better in cooler climate. Here is an extensive list and description of almost all Buck roses from Iowa STATE University. The photos, alas, are not very good. http://www.ag.iastate.edu/centers/cad/where.html The next website for the best source for best priced, strongest own root Buck roses. Here is a link that might be useful: Chamlee's

Hi Jim: Mas mentioned that she's applying silica ... known to strengthen cell-wall. I checked on potassium and disease-prevention, and found this in Wikipedia, "In agriculture, some cultivars are more efficient at K uptake due to genetic variations, and often these plants have increased disease resistance.[1] The mechanisms include a decreased cell permeability and decreased susceptibility to tissue penetration. Silica, which is accumulated in greater quantities when adequate potassium is present, is incorporated into cell walls, strengthening the epidermal layer which functions as a physical barrier to pathogens. Potassium has also been implicated to have a role in the proper thickening of cell walls." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_deficiency_(plants) **** From Straw: I notice that my disease-resistant roses: Basyes Blueberry, Excellenz von Schubert, Knock-outs, Kordes Flower Carpet, Annie L. McDowell, Marie Pavie, Bolero, Christopher Marlowe, Frederic Mistral, Old Port, Lilian Austin, and Nahema have THICKER LEAVES than flimsy Gruss an Teplitz' leaves. The disease-resistant own-roots are more efficient in getting potassium from the soil, than Dr. Huey's parent, Gruss an Teplitz. I notice that when I bring down the pH of my alkaline tap water through a bit of vinegar, ... the leaves of Sweet Promise rose became thinner, and more wilting in hot sun. So I checked on that, and a few University Extension mentioned that as the pH drops, levels of calcium and potassium are less available. There's the misconception that the pH has to be slightly acidic for roses to bloom best ... that's NOT true. The best tons-of-blooms in HMF are from sandy alkaline gardens, such as of Kitty Belendez in CA, she uses a soluble fertilizer mix, including kelp meal. Seaweed has alkaline clay soil, and she gets tons of blooms with soluble fertilizer. Alkaline soil pH doesn't matter, since plants can do acid-phosphatase (secreting acids to utilize phosphorus in soil). Dr. Huey root-stock is good in acid-phosphatase for blooming, but lousy in getting potassium from the soil. Here's an excerpt from eHow: "Potassium levels increase with higher pH levels, so acidic soils, which have lower pH levels, tend to have less potassium content than alkaline soils. According to professor Linda Chalker-Scott, potassium levels are particularly low in sandy acidic soils. Amending Your Soil: If your soil has low pH and potassium levels, you should apply lime to increase soil pH. For potassium-deficient soils that are not acidic, fertilizers such as potassium sulfate (sulfate of potash) may be more appropriate." *** From Straw: below is Annie L. McDowell, zero diseases for the past 2 years, that rose has VERY THICK leaves. I put gypsum in the planting hole & use soluble sulfate of potash. Picture taken June 19, after 3-days of rain & humid weather: