Any rose that can make it through our brutal Winters! I grow mostly Canadian Explorer roses. My favorite is a pink climber, John Davis. It's hardy and beautiful with clusters of pink roses. I have two of them.

Too hard to choose just one!! - Moonstone, Folklore, King of Hearts, Hot Princess, Gold Medal are some of my never be with-outs..... :) Zone 5 here also SE WI

I love my Julia Child. Very hardy good disease resistance and she blooms her head off!

I have to pick Bonica. Perhaps not the most exciting of my roses but one I would not be without. I have 6 of them, planted in 1995, and they have never disappointed me. They are often the latest roses in bloom. I have them near the house so I can see them even when the weather is too nasty to go outside. I recently added the climbing variety to the group to grow up the drainpipe.

I'm in zone 5b in Sweden.

Cold climates can certainly be a challenge! I'm hoping the snow will melt soon, because the 5 new roses I ordered should be arriving soon! (I suppose the rose nurseries know when to send them for your area)

One of my favorites is a once blooming Alba rose called 'Morning Blush'. Each rose is just a bit different, with soft looking roses of white and dark pinks. Although it only has one flush of blooms, they seem to keep coming out for weeks!

I have to say that for me it would be D.A. shrub roses such as Golden Celebration, L.D. Braithwaite and Mary Rose; continues bloom and large for me. As for Hybrid Teas, Queen Elizabeth, Wild Blue Yonder and Peace are a bloom machine for me as well.

For vigor and beautiful plentiful blooms my favorites are Paradise, Dick Clark (pictured), Francis Meilland, and Senior Prom! Looking forward to hearing the responses on this!

I love Dick Clark! Yours is beautiful (nummy kitchen). I just wondered if its hardy enough for my zone 5. Do you protect it?

No winter protection here, and you know how bad the past couple of years have been! Mine is own root though...

Julia Child has been unstoppable. I even planted her with the graft above the soil line - it was before I knew anything! Hasn't fazed her though. I have other favourites but they haven't been through enough winters to say for sure yet.

I seem to have the best luck with own-root as well.

(redwolfdoc) I should really give Julia Childs a try!

Should also note: Morden Blush and Savoy Hotel I put in last year are showing hardly any cane damage, and we had the coldest February on record this year...

I planted a Dick Clark for the first time last June. Oh my goodness. It was full of beautiful reddish/orange/yellow blooms over the entire bush the entire growing season through November. I hope it does as well this season. Gorgeous, healthy bush.

Dick Clark is a beautiful Grandiflora! Nice to hear how well it does for you!

Tiffany has to be my favorite. Hard to choose one though. Also like Teasing Georgia, Melody Parfume, Fragrant Cloud and Heaven On Earth. All have done well & survived many winters in zone 5 Nebraska.

I'm surprised to hear you can get a Hybrid Tea to survive, I never have much luck with them! Is Fragrant Cloud as 'fragrant' as they say? I'll have to check out 'Heaven on Earth', just the name sounds like it would be amazing!

Many folks who have trouble getting HTs to survive plant the bud union, that is where the variety you want to grow is grafted onto a different rose root, too shallowly. The graft is very sensitive to freeze/ thaw cycles and needs to be planted 2 to 4" below grade to reliably survive. There are, however, some varieties that never manage the cold.

Yes, <i>Fragrant Cloud</i> is as smelly as they say. I have a friend who has a bed of them, all but one own-root plants from the mother. They are divine!

Steve

So far my favorites are Julia Child, Lady Of Shallot, Gartendirekor Otto Lynne (sp), and all of my Kordes Roses. Forgot Flower Girl and probably some more.

Hi, fellow Zone 5-er here. I love the look of roses (who doesn't?) but have always shied away from them because they make me think High Maintenance which is not my style. However, we purchased a home that has what I believe to be Rosa rugosa. What a trooper!!

Are any of these lovely sounding roses easy to care for?

I have lots of no spray roses, greenhearted. Not so many that are hardy to the tip in are winters. As long as you don't mind pruning there are many varieties to choose from. I grow my roses own root but that is a personal choice. My nurseries that I order from because they sell own root roses are Chamblee's Rose Nursery. Northland Rosarium, Heirloom Roses and Roses Unlimited. I also really like Edmunds Roses They sell some own root and their really nice.

I do have one rugosa rose Roseraie de l'Hay. They just don't come any more no care than this rose. Hardy to the tips even after these last two winters. Disease free and pretty much in bloom all season. I say pretty much because the Japanese Beetles love her flowers so I only get to see the blooms when the beetles are gone.

So depending on what you like there is a whole world of wonderful roses out their.

Here is one that the beetles don't like. White Out has very clean foliage for me.

Thanks for the information, Patty W. Wow, that White Out is lovely!

Oh those darned Japanese Beetles! Yes, they ate the flowers off my rugosa as well. I was so impressed with how quickly it bounced back and started wondering if there were other roses that were tough.

I don't mind pruning at all and I'm really glad to know that there are varieties that don't need to be sprayed.

I think I will have to start reading up on roses. I am assuming that when you say Own Root that you mean non-grafted varieties? Thanks for the recommended nurseries as well.

I am new to roses but I love so many it's hard to choose.

I think I will give credit to Carefree Beauty. I love it so much I got a second one. It would not stop blooming.. it died back to the ground this year from a lack of snow or any winter protection and is coming back already with new growth... at least six inches tall. I can't wait to see what both of them do this year.

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BCroselover; Your roses are beautiful! Is there any way to cut branches from that tree to get more sunlight? Well, at least maybe you can plant the new one in a sunnier spot. I remember once a friend gave me a small rose plant, that she had no idea of the variety. In the second year, it had one, beautiful bloom. The rose was bigger than the single little stem it was attached to! But it was stunning. I nurtured it all season, but it just struggled along until it died. (So I feel your pain!) I think I've identified it as 'Peace', so I might look into getting one.

Michaela, Your Carefree beauty rose looks nice and healthy. This is a great rose, you will love it! It never stops blooming!

bcroselover, that Taboo bloom is a beauty. What a great photo. I find it so difficult to photograph reds.

I wanted to buy a Julia Child (cuz I wanted a pretty yellow to add to our garden), and I heard it was a non stop bloomer & it was very, very hearty. They were all out of them everywhere when I was looking (June, last season). SOB

Thanks, jasminerose4u. To me the problem is to find a rose that's dark red, and a balanced red, not leaning either towards purple or orange. This is where Taboo and a very few other red roses excel. The closed buds of Taboo are literally black, turning to red as they open, and the full flower becomes cherry red. I shoot my photographs digitally in RAW, a format that allow much adjustment of each colour. For instance, red has a slider that moves between orange and purple. You can also adjust the temperature, which is a slider between warm (yellow) light and cold (blue) light. This enables me to try to make the photo true to the actual colour. Sometimes it's just impossible, but this one captured it very well, this is Taboo fully open. Incidentally, I have a book where the author disses Taboo for being prone to blackspot. But it is absolutely my healthiest rose. When I'm spraying all the others with Cornell formula, I usually don't have to spray Taboo at all.

bcroselover, that is one stellar photograph!

Adding that two new own root from last year were tip hardy. They were Innocencia and Little Chap. Love these two roses.

Thanks for sharing BCroselover. I might have to look for a space for Taboo, if I can get my hands on one. I will look into that RAW format too.

I love this shade of red in roses.

What climate zone do you live in bcroselover? Taboo is a hybrid tea, that generally needs a zone 6 or warmer climate to survive. If you live in zone 5, and have good luck with it, I just might get one also. I have good luck with own root varieties. Do you winter protect it? The color is gorgeous!

Hi. I live in zone 5 in the Selkirk Mountains of BC. Because I live in a valley with a very large lake, it may ameliorate our climate in general, nevertheless cold snaps here regularly get down to -17C and can last a week or two. Our average cold temperature in winter is about -3 C. I heap soil and/or peat moss up around it after the first frost. It is recommended to make a 12-inch high covering, but that is arduous if you have more than 2 or 3 roses and I soon found out it didn't need that much. As a matter of fact, one year I broke my leg and didn't cover it at all. It died back quite severely, but popped back better than the year before. This year I only did about 6 inches of dirt and topped it off with a heap of pine straw -- the dropped needles of a long-needled pine tree. I had no winter die back at all. Lots of people here grow HTs, but as I say, they are generally not long-lived in this climate. The Taboo (Barkarole) is about 10 years old (and failing), but with only 4-1/2 hours of sunlight a day it's amazing it has lasted this long. I have seen HTs in this area that have obviously been growing many years, though.

I'm trying to plant varieties that are trouble-free, easy care roses that don't need protecting, because like you say, it becomes a lot of work covering them all, and then again in the spring removing all the covering.

I live in zone 5 a little west of Madison WI and have a "Blaze Improved" that has been in for over 8 years. I live in a valley so I get lots of wind and a little cooler climate than in town, my lilacs bloom 2 weeks after the ones there. I didn't do a very good job of taking care of Blaze (didn't prune, water regularly, or fertilize up till 2 years ago). The pictures below are from today, October 3rd, and it's still cranking out the 2.25" blooms on the 5-6 foot canes. It does get BS here but I don't care, this has got to be the bloomingist rose I have. The color is a true, rich, beautiful red that does not fade (picture color is pretty accurate). Little or no fragrance to me. I don't do anything special in the winter except dump a half bag of chip bark mulch on the base for winter and sometimes if I have extra oak leaves I use those instead. There is very

little die back or pruning to do come spring. From what I've read, 'Blaze' is zone 6-10, blooms on old wood, and 'Blaze Improved' is zone 5-9 blooms on new and old wood, if that helps for pruning. Very consistent and dependable.

This is a repost from the Blaze topic.

I have had very good luck with Reine des Violette, Rosa Rugosa Magnifica, Twilight Zone, Lady of Shalott, Zephrine Droughin, The Lark Ascending and Blaze Improved from above. Roses planted spring of 2017 are Royal Jubilee, Golden Celebration, Munstead Wood, Jude the Obscure and Angel Face. Looking forward to see how they fair through the winter.

I’m very partial to the JFK rose which is a hybrid tea but has done magnificently in my climate in Massachusetts.

There's a beautiful red called " Navy Lady" that does well in Z5 in the Columbus Park of Roses. Light fragrance and bushy growth. High Country Roses carries it. Peter Schneider's book "Right Rose, Right Place" is all about Z5 roses. I think he mentions "Blaze Improved" is also called "Demokracie".

When we lived in Colorado, my favorite was Ramblin Red. Beautiful red blooms, and virtually no dieback. Its a climber, but didn't outgrow its space, like New Dawn did. Sorry I don't have a picture, as we have moved, but I'm sure there's plenty of pictures on the web, or even on this site.

My #1 favorite tea is "Legends"..... after that in order "Rina Hugo", "Stephens Big Purple" & "Pope John Paul". Favorite shrub "Polonaise" and "Carefree Beauty". I also love "Betty Boop" and "Doris Day" (I believe they are floribundas?) All are strong growers, consistent blooming, and healthy in my zone 5 garden.