Aaron: What are the qualities in Moonlight Romantica that you don't like? Thanks for any info. I thought about buying it for the vigor, too many rabbits here that devour short roses. Agree with you on weird long cane shooting out out a round bush, saw that with Cream Veranda in a pot for $5 at HomeDepot .. sniffed that and it was odd fruity for me. No regrets not buying, I am spoiled by Marie Pavie's perfect round bush. Carol: Thank you. My roses are healthy thanks to alkaline clay. In my last house with acidic black clay and FULL SUN, roses were blackspot-fest & wimpy. In my present house of alkaline black clay & very shady garden, leaves and blooms are pale but healthy. I find that at alkaline pH, roses bloom well if given alfalfa meal & sulfate of potash & SOLUBLE fertilizer. I put too much garden lime in the planting hole of band-size-Marie-Pavie, and leaves turn pale, but it pumped out 5 buds (fertilized with alfalfa meal & soluble fertilizer). In contrast, another bigger-gallon-Marie-Pavie planted MG-potting soil, fertilized with MG-soluble for roses refused to bloom for months even with dark-green leaves. The pot was too acidic with accumulated rain-water. Click on below chart to see all the major nutrients are less available at pH below 5, and rain-water here pH is 4.5 (same with the East Coast): Below is a map of USA showing the pH of rain:

I'm in Wisconsin and I've got over 50 roses. I didn't do any winter protection last year either. Roses do require more care than other plants if you don't pick the right rose for your climate. If you want roses that look like the ones from the florist then you have to do some more work. First, decide whether or not you are willing to spray. If you are then it opens up a lot more options. If you aren't, then you'll have to do a lot of research on what is disease resistant in your area. There are many different fungus that roses can get and each climate is different as far as what fungus is around and what roses are resistant. Second, buy from a good nursery. Cheap bareroots from a discount store often won't make it because they're dried out and stored improperly. You want to spend some money here on a plant that starts out in good shape. Third, plant deep. Most roses are grafted on a rootstock and that bud union where the two parts are joined is very sensitive. Plant it at least 4 inches down and that will protect it. Fourth, keep it healthy. If you are spraying then set up a regular spray program. If you aren't, then keep it watered. Roses like an inch of water a week. Be sure to plant it in a spot that gets good sunlight and isn't too crowded. Fifth, let it rest before winter. Don't fertilize a month before the first freeze and stop deadheading. Don't prune it. You want the rose to know that it can rest. Lastly, clean it up in the spring. Do a dormant spray of lime sulfur if you aren't doing other spraying. When it starts to warm up cut off all the dead canes and keep an eye on it. My roses often get canker in the spring (dark areas on the canes) and that must be cut out quickly to save the rose. By following these rules I've been able to grow almost any rose. Last year I lost two roses in the spring out of about 30 or so. One rose I don't know what happened to it and the other died of canker and won't be replaced as I think that spot is just too wet for roses. I've even got a florist rose out there that does fine. I spray, so if you aren't spraying then you have to be a lot more picky about what you plant as you need the rose to be healthy in order for it to survive the winter and grow well in the spring.

All your comments and advice are terrific. I'm not involving the police on this one. I have involved them before though. A "neighbor" (such a benign word for a family of human miscreants) decided he could cut branches off my trees and dig up plants hanging over my backyard fence. He believed in his tiny brain that he had a property right to do so. Behind my house we have a large public alley, basically a road. He lives across the road and he and his dad clean all organic matter out of their gravel with a tweezer. Of course, my yard is an affront to their sterile GRAVEL-WORLD. After he cut branches the first time, I got him to agree to not do it again without my permission. Of course, he couldn't help himself, because the voices in his head kept telling him to cut. That's when the police told him to stop or they'd arrest him. They told him what he thought was his right was only in his imagination, not actual law. After I worked for several years to get chicanes (2 half traffic circles) installed on our street to slow traffic, I was labeled a property rights thief by a psychotic neighbor. She convinced the neighborhood drunk and others that I had violated his property rights. Even though most neighbors liked having the chicane, the evil-doers (Rumsfeld would have called them "a group of dead-enders")vandalaized the chicanes, my property, and even took the lug nuts off one of my car wheels (under cover of darkness). Anyhow, I lived here in a hostile environment for about 4 years. yes, that's how long the anti-chicane activists persisted. Their evilness and inability to get their way ate away at them and they all moved away. It's now really quiet and nice here. So, this cherry thing is small potatoes. A couple days after this cherry incident, a man was killed in an altercation around his caring for plants in a traffic circle.

This is a very old thread but I still thought I might add my two-bits worth to it. lozza has obviously had a lot of experience growing rugosas in Melbourne but I thought I might just add a slightly different take on rugosa scent from my experience growing them here in coastal NSW. I planted a R. rugosa Alba along a fence line where it has in typical rugosa fashion thrived and flowered for the last three years (and even had a small seedling with the other parent a nearby Crepuscule I think). What sets it apart from other rugosas that I have grown up in the dry, cold tablelands is the scent. I can smell this rose even when I am walking past pushing the mower ��" so above the smell of petrol and cut grass. So maybe the fragrant mystery white rose of France was encountered on a day of soft, heavy humidity like we experience here more often than not. Anyway, it is just an idea as I had never had such wonderfully smelly roses before I gardened in an area of higher humidity. And it is not just the rugosas, but the hybrid musks are also extremely fragrant on any day (when the air is still!).