I know this is an old thread but its been very good and useful so I thought I'd chime in. All the roses i recommend have been mentioned here but I live very close to you in Zone 10 Florida so I thought I'd let you know what has worked in my garden. I have over 50 roses and my best performer is by far Belinda's Dream (you probably have it by now, if not, get it!). Always in bloom all year round, doesn't mind heat/humidity or rain has perfectly formed blooms AND its fragrant. It has it all! One of my other good performers so far have been some Ausitns. My BEST bloomer is Huntington rose, but it does get black spot a bit. I don't spray her so i just prune her a bit after every other flush and she keeps bouncing back. Queen of Sweden has been excellent. Not as big a bloomer as Huntington but NO black spot at all. She does grow TALL though (huntington grows WIDE), So Far she has stayed very narrow and tall. Jubilee celebration has done well but she is too new to tell if she'll get through the rainy season without too much BS. Wollerton Old Hall, great fragrance great BS resistance but bloom color is not my cup of tea (kind of a tan/beige). Alnwick rose has done well too as well as Abraham Darby (tried and true). All my Austins are in planters though, none in the ground. As for HT roses my best performers have been Mr. Lincoln, Olympiad (very good), Gold Medal (also very good), Queen Elizabeth (kind of gangly but blooms alot), iceberg and brilliant pink iceberg are great but grow wide, not tall (they stay short though). Pretty much all my HT get some black spot in the rainy season but i just trim them come fall and they do well all the way until the following May. If you are looking for a more bushy rose try the new KORDES varieties. I have had ABSOLUTELY no black spot on Lion's Fairy Tale and Mandarin Ice, and I hear all the Fairy Tales are just as good as lions. I'm getting a few more this year from that series. OH also don't forget BUCKS roses. Superb! I have Polonaise and Golden Princess and both are great with BS (very very little) but by far the best one has been Quietness! She has NO BS and beautiful fragrant blooms. Very Fragrant! Some roses to stay away from would be Oklahoma, Double delight (every one raves about her but she's a BS magnet in my garden) Angle Face (same). Cherish (love her blooms but same BS issues). I grow most of my roses in planters so you may need to see if you can find any of these on Fortuniana RS. I highly recommend the Kordes ones though, they have really thrived own root with NO disease they stand out like champs. They almost don't even look like rose bushes they are so leafy. Duchess du Brabant has been another good one. She does get a little BS but she seems to shake it off quickly. I just also got Rosette DeLizzy and clotilde soupert but they are still babies so too soon to tell. Good luck and let me know what does well in your garden!

Thank you, Lynn for reviving this old post! I have had a lot of trial and error since writing this post back in 2014. I have lost many roses to RRV in the last couple of years, and have shovel pruned just as many because I don’t have enough yard to deal with roses that defoliate in summer. My new favorite yellow rose, and possibly my favorite rose ever is the Poets Wife. I’ve had 2 that were so healthy and constantly in bloom until I had to remove them due to RRV. I also had a Sunsprite that was tiny but always healthy and with lovely dark green foliage. I’m pretty sure it just got smothered by another rose in my garden (my fault), I just noticed it didn’t come back one year, so I’m not sure what exactly happened to it, I would definitely try growing it again in a better spot. Another stellar yellow I have found that is one heck of an aggressive climber is Golden Gate. This thing has become a monster in my yard, but it is always covered with gorgeous yellow blooms & healthy green foliage. I would recommend it to anyone with a lot of space to play with. Unfortunately GG is about to be shovel pruned as well since I noticed signs of RRV on it just the other day. I am sure my husband will be happy because this thing has taken over one whole corner of the yard & it makes mowing difficult at times. I am gutted to have had so many losses these past few years, but after a year of sulking I am trying to remain positive & see it as an opportunity to grow new things, some of which are not roses. I’ve got a mixed shrub boarder going in to sort of act as a windbreak to hopefully provide some shelter to my roses from RRV mites that might be blowing around due to the mass plantings of knock outs around all the new apartment buildings in my area. I’ve got a few types of Verbena, a mock orange, a vitex, & some rose of sharon going in. All will be shades of white and blue/purple when in bloom & I am already imagining how yellow roses would look against all the shades of blue/purple. I hope to get some roses in that boarder eventually. After a year or two of “giving up” on growing roses, I am accidentally back in full force and have several yellows that were delivered or purchased in the past few weeks that are new to me this year. I’ve got a South Africa (in part because of the comment above, I always remembered that lovely photo) from ARE & I’m going to let it leaf out a little more before putting it in the bed. I found Roald Dahl at the local nursery & was so excited to find it since it was sold out when I placed my david austin order this year. I also had to buy two more the Poets Wife, since as I mentioned above it is one of my absolute favorite roses. One PW is a bareroot directly from DA, but then when I found it again at my local nursery I had to buy a second one. It will be interesting to see if the bare root catches up the the nursery potted plant, I know some people swear bare roots will surpass a nursery pot in growth its first year, but I’ve never found that to be the case for the DA roses I have grown. I do have a 4-5 year old Teasing Georgia that is doing better than ever, which is sort of shocking to me. After being very slow to establish for several years (I did buy it from the “scratch and dent” area of the nursery & then ignore it for a couple of years so it’s not really her fault), but TG looks happier than ever this year & appears to have no signs of RRV even though the rose directly next to it was one of the worst cases of RRV in the whole yard & was removed a few months back.. We will see if it continues to be healthy in the coming months, I really don’t know what to expect anymore. I can’t tell if I’m crazy or just very hopeful for continuing to try to grow roses after loosing so many to RRV last year, but most of the knock outs nearby are dying and I’ve been in contact with the apartment building office and they seem open to the idea of removing the rest after I explained the situation, so we will see. I realized I loved them too much to just not try again. I am including acouple of photos of both Teasing Georgia and the mammoth Golden Gate that is about to be removed (this will not be easy as it is massive & very thorny- say a prayer for us)

Fade resistance depends mainly on your chosen color...LITERALLY! Earth/mineral-based colorants fade the least (Blacks, Red-Oxides, Yellow-Oxides, Browns & Umbers). Artificially created colorants (Reds, Magentas, brigther Yellows, etc.) fade the most in bright sun. * A Red door/trim that's in the shade a lot, obviously, won't fade that much. * A Red door in full sun will look "pink" relatively fast... High-ends paints, like C2 Exterior, FPE, a couple high-end BM & SW lines have better colorants. * C2 for instance, uses 2 RED colorants...HR=High-strength Red; and RL=Red low. * Also two Yellows, two Blues, & two Blacks. * Only a ~couple companies have TWO high-strength colorant versions. These type of colorants are pretty color-stable outside. They should be...you could feed a family of 3 at a restaraunt for what a Qt. of C2 High-strength Red costs! * FPE uses colorant PASTES for most of their series. VERY high-Q stuff there! Faron

I had a catawba that i planted along with 2 centennial crape myrtles last summer. The 2 centennials got powery mildew and the catawba did not. The centennials are doing good now. But the catawba did not leaf out all the way. I might take it out in the fall after it gets done flowering. But the leaves are VERY pretty on it and the bloom color is STUNNING. You will like the Catawba.