I'm trying Princess Alexandra of Kent, Strawberry Hill, and Evelyn espaliered in a similar fashion as you describe. Don't know how they'll do yet, but all three were highly recommended to me on this forum. I'm also in a hot and dry area, and have no clue how these Austins perform in high humidity. A client grows Strawberry Hill -- the blooms are big and gorgeous beyond words, and the fragrance, to my nose -- heaven.

Best of luck in making your selection.

jannike

In GA, you should be able to grow the yellow-to-apricot Tea-Noisettes -- Reve d'Or, Crepuscule, Jaune Desprez. They should heart your climate. And they are fragrant as all getout.

I second Jeri's noisette suggestion. Crepuscule is one of my favorite roses, but I also love Clotilde Soupert, climbing. It has a wonderful scent and blooms a lot. It will ball here if we have several days of overcast, humid weather, but otherwise is very healthy.

I've always found the Tea-Noisettes to be very manageable roses.

Maybe you should look at 'Renae'. It gets big, but along a fence, you can simply let it keep going horizontally along its length.

:-)

~Christopher

How about 'Blush Noisette'? Modest little pink roses; whether you like that depends on your tastes. Fragrant, with a scent that carries; tough, reblooming, not too many thorns (not thornless, but not a beast). I don't know about disease resistence in your area, but the Noisettes--this is an early one--come from South Carolina originally. Its dimensions should be reasonable for your site; it can also be grown as a shrub. I've always liked this rose.

As you see, I like the idea of the Noisettes, too, but will add a word of warning about 'Jaune Desprez': it's one of my bloodthirsty roses, and requires annual training; and my plant is currently about 15'x10': not the best for a 4' chain link fence. 'Crepuscule' also gets big for me, but it has few thorns and the growth is lax and easy to train. I still think it would get too big for your fence.

Melissa

I'd go along with Christopher's and Melissa's suggestions, and add Buff Beauty for your consideration. I may be mistaken, but I would have thought these three would be of a much more easily manageable habit and vigour for a fence of only 4ft high. Renae is virtually thornless while Blush Noisette and Buff Beauty are not normally overly thorny. (I have heard of some very thorny clones of Blush Noisette though, so perhaps double-check with your supplier before you order.)

Yes, I know BB is yellow - just what you DIDN'T want! - but do just take a look at her; she's not the brassy type, just loads and loads of romantic ruffled blooms of pale apricot to soft gold to ivory, deepening in cooler weather to more pronounced apricot and peach tones, with a lovely fragrance that should waft in your steamy air. She's almost always found to be extremely disease-resistant with plenty of attractive dark, shiny foliage. She also LIKES to grow horizontally so it shouldn't take much persuasion at all to coax her along your low fence.

Aimee Vibert is another Noisette I would have suggested as a not over-vigorous, almost thornless, very flexible/easily trained climber; except that Jeri has mentioned that the climber doesn't repeat. Over here she repeats well all season, so again, there may be differences in clones or strains developed in different areas and parts of the world. She puts out big clusters of pretty little 'milk-white' blooms and carmine buds, that exude a sweet, musky fragrance. I'm not sure how she would go in Georgia - as Melissa pointed out, the Noisette class originated in the American South, but this later one was created in France.

An alternative to a climber might be to look at planting a row of shrub roses, as others have suggested, possibly splayed out and tied against the fence like climbers if there's not room for them to bush out to the front. I don't know about David Austins for your conditions - I think you really would need some local advice on which ones would be likely to flourish and not be impossibly disease-prone in your area. I'm sorry, I can't really comment on Eden/Pierre de Ronsard, either, other than to say I didn't think it had much fragrance, and I also suspect it may be another of those fully petal-packed types with a disappointing tendency to ball in humidity - again, I could be mis-remembering, and others may know better.

Comtesse :¬)

An idea you may wish to consider is to alternate climbers with shorter shrubs. You can train the climbers to go mostly along or near the top of the fence, and let the shrubs fill in the lower space beneath. 'Souvenir de la Malmaison' and its clan of sports would work well with your color scheme, as would some fragrant Polyanthas, Floribundas, and shorter Austins.

If you're sticking to pale shades for your roses there, integrating some dark-flowered Clematis along the fence would give a nice pop. Type-3s would be easy, since they're simply hard-pruned in Spring, and would bloom most heavily when the roses are having a lull after the main flush. You can plant them to grow into the climbing roses once the roses have put on enough size. Type-2s are best with minimal pruning, and will bloom with the roses during the main flush, and again after the peak of Summer heat. The only downside to them would be if they grew into the roses and got in the way of pruning/training. But if you use them between the climbers and keep them on the fence, they should work well. Brushwood Nursery has a great selection of Clematis and other climbers.

:-)

~Christopher