I'm exactly where you are right now. When I started collecting roses I didn't pay attention to disease resistance, I just had to have those pretty Austin roses. I'm tired of spraying, and when my life gets busy and I don't get to it my garden looks horrible. In looking at my roses yesterday after a busy week a good third of my collection develped black spot, some worse then others. I do need to slowly start replacing those roses that are not disease resistant, or just don't love my climate and haven't flourished. My favorite part of my yard now is my antique garden, and this is slowly the way I need to go. I also think I need to do a soil test this fall, and see if I'm just not giving my roses the soil they need to be their best.

I think if gardening stresses me out it's not worth having. for example, the spring/summer weather in my area is ideal for almost all roses. It's the winter that can kill stuff. I do not want to stress every fall winterizing, spend months agonizing over winter & to find out in spring that things didn't make it. I also have come to the realization that I will never have many of the climbing roses that higher zones have & my shrubs will not reach the sizes that many in the southern states have. I don't spray for anything, if a plant can't hack it here, I'll find something else. I can't imagine spending so much time fussing over a plant. I deadhead, water & throw down some compost/fertilizer when needed, but other than that it's survival of the fittest. I guess if there was a rose that took my breath away or had sentimental value I may put in a bit more time. However, if a plant looks poorly in the yard it just reminds me that there is always something else to plant in that spot. I'm all about the overall health & shape of a plant in my garden.

Hi Sara,

Boy it's so hard to recommend a rose sometimes. This relentless ridiculous humidity and heat has not been good for the garden. You did ask about the Veranda series. I just don't know what to say. Maybe they have not been fed well enough I don't really know. I can say that in high humidity the blooms are about the size of quarters if that. Since spring it has been humid and I've have not seen a bloom on Jolie that has not bull headed. Now she is only 2 years old. But I well be extremely surprised if she makes it to year three. Even thou I love my Cream Veranda, I don't believe she is that great in humidity. Great bush but the flowers are beginning to bother me. The same goes for Floral Fairy Tale. I now have 2 different FFT's. My original which behaves like Cream Veranda and the FFT not from Roses Unlimited. The RU rose may turn out to be a better rose but have not had it long enough to know yet. So far it is healthy with a much larger flower. I do believe that the Verandas would do very well in drier heat.

I can recommend Golden Fairy Tale it is healthy. Not perfect but pretty darn good and flowers well. The others did not flower all that well for me but were healthy. I had them for 3 years shovel pruned in the fourth. This does not include FFT as it never did fit the style of fairy tale series.

I am extremely happy with South Africa and Sunny Sky.

If Plum Perfect makes it thru winter it is a winner here.

Savannah is looking very vigorous and flowering a lot in it's first year but has anthracnose. Maybe that is my fault I don't know. The roses have been covered in dew all night every night for 2 months now.

I'm very happy with Flamenco Rosita very healthy in its 2nd year. Nice sized blooms this year not huge but nice and unaffected by the humidity and heat.

I have many more Kordes that are too young to comment on yet. Good luck in your search. I don't know about you but my energy is only going so far these days.

I do have many other roses that are doing very well. Just not as double as you were asking about.

Thank you everyone. I love the antique roses, and i do know Bourbons and Hybrid Perpetuals do good here.

Also, Hybrid Musk roses are supposed to do good in my zone, and there are some I think are very pretty, Buff Beauty and Lavender Lassie are two that come to mind, there are many lovely ones.

Thank you, Patty for your honest opinions.

Sara....you are going in the same direction that I started a couple of years ago. I'm shovel pruning those roses that are especially BS prone plus the ones that don't thrive in my area. Your list of BS resistant roses pretty much matches what I have except for Twilight Zone. TZ is a BS magnet in my garden & I shovel pruned 3 of them...that hurt because I really liked their blooms. Another group of roses that are healthy & usually thrive in my area are the Easy Elegance roses plus many of the Dr. Buck roses. I have 4 more roses on the list for next year to be shovel pruned. One of the things I've seen is that BS resistant roses will come down with BS if they are next to rose that is susceptible & thus infect the resistant rose. Brothers Grimm (ADR), Solero Vigorosa (ADR), Julia Child, & Funny Face (EE) have all come down with BS when adjacent to a BS infected rose but once I removed the BS susceptible rose, they stay BS free. Years ago there used to be a poster here named John from MN who was a big Dr. Buck fan. He made a comment that "a little spray (fungicide) went a long way" on the Dr. Buck roses because of their better disease resistance. I'm finding that I can spray my roses real good once early in the spring & then about every 5 weeks keeps my rose clean & healthy

I'm kind of on the same kick. I get tired of spraying my roses and have slowly been removing many of my disease prone hybrid teas and replacing them with Austins, OGR, Romantica's or other disease resistant shrub roses. Right now I have my largest rose bed as a mixture of these and its insane how much better the resistant roses are doing. Nahema is full and bushy next to the literal twigs that was once my Sugar Moon (and OH how I loved her blooms and scent). Secret, Gemini and Bride's Dream are all mostly bare, yet Wedding Bells right next to them is full and lush. Moon Stone is all twigs and right next to Pat Austin who struts her stuff and is full of leaves and blooms. The Shepherdess looks like she's a loner because Colorific and Outta The Blue are bare stems next to her bushy growth. Anyone would think that I chose to spray some of my bushes and not others with the erratic growth and dramatic difference from one variety to the next. Meanwhile my Austin bed looks great and its in partial sun! I just shovel pruned Fragrant Cloud to make room fro Young Lucydas and I plan on removing Secret and replacing her with Lady Of Shallot. My poor HT's, I feel so bad, but I just hate spraying and after so much more success with Austins, OGR's and Romanticas (and a few Kordes) I just cant help but start disliking the HT's that don't perform well. Its taken me years to get here, but after all the time and money spent on failing roses, I'm just a lot more discerning than I used to be.

I dislike stingy and balling or vegetative centers almost as much as BS.

Thank you, wirosarian and SoFL. You've both given me lots to think about. and I can relate to a lot of what you both said.