Hi Beth - I'm new to this forum, but not new to coastal Southern Cal rose growing, so I'll chime in too. I'm in San Juan Capistrano on the South end of Orange County and about 2.5 miles from the beach in a coastal canyon. So I know all about roses in the marine layer fog. Mildew, not black spot, is the bane of our existence here. The only blackspot I've ever seen in my garden was on florist roses. But I do spray. And the three most fragrant ones on your list -- Double Delight, McCartney Rose and Fragrant Cloud -- will mildew even with religious spraying. But, the fragrance is worth it and I grow all three. No one has told you about the rose societies here yet. There are several. I go all the way south to the California Coastal Rose Society in Carlsbad. That's probably too far for you. There are two other OC rose societies -- the Orange County Rose Society which meets very near to Huntington Beach in Westminster -- they focus on exhibitions and hold their show the last weekend of October every year at Rogers Gardens. There's also another one that focuses mostly on gardening, garden tours and garden parties -- no exhibiting -- which is the Saddleback Rose Society -- that one's a bit inland for both of us. Wholly different climate those folks have. You can get to either one by googling the names, or I've put a link in here for the OCRS. On the rest of your list, I've grown most of them, and they do just fine. But as a general rule, in coastal cool areas like ours, fewer petals is better. Many roses just won't open like they do in hot climes, and sometimes you just die waiting for a leeeetle bit of heat to get them open, which never comes. So, plan to have some that open without heat. As for colors, try these -- Pink -- Our Lady Of Guadalupe is by far the best pink floribunda. But also check out The Imposter and Lovestruck, both of which do well for me. For Hybrid Teas, I like Memorial Day. Purple -- Intrigue is okay, but try Purple Tiger -- it's better and it's striped. It does really well on the coast. For a Hybrid Tea, I like Neptune and one that Armstrongs carries called Della Reese that is a darker purple hybrid tea with occasional exhibition form. Orange -- About Face Red -- I'm still looking for a good one. Yellow -- Julia Child or Midas Touch. Or even Peace, which gets enormous blooms on the coast. Multi -- get some stripes -- City of Carlsbad if you can find it or Cabana if you can't. Have fun. I seem to move every few years just BECAUSE I get to replenish my garden. Enjoy it. Kathy Here is a link that might be useful: Orange County Rose Society

Beth, I noticed an outbreak of similarly coloured petunias appearing all over the UK (gold and maroon) which caused me to literally avert my eyes on walking past. As a rule, I am a lover of bright colours (no beige in my house or wardrobe) but am strictly old school when it comes to roses - white or pink (or palest yellow at a pinch). Course, that does not apply to the dahlia beds, nor the many rows of cutting gladioli or luridly coloured annuals (apart from said petunias) in my allotment. Particularly enjoying a combo of orange, purple, deep red and acid green.......just not in the roses. And yeah, striped roses, not even pink and white, really do it for me but I was agog at the variety available in the US.

Hi Michelle, I'm thinking you're in the same zone as I am (La Jolla, coastal, Sunset 24, standard 10) and facing the same miseries -- the nasty June gloom of coastal marine inversions. We've had a great 7 days this last week-- whoo-hooo.... sunburn city and heaven for the coast after the coldest spring on record in 76 years. Boy was last week a blessing! But now the usual June gloom has arrived and the 5-7 day forcast is for clouds and afternoon clearing, which in my area means it will clear from 3 pm to 5 pm and then the fog will roll in again. Here's my take from the last year and a half...... Like your plants, mine are in containers, and really perked up over the last week with the heat -- in fact I have 3 tomatoes actually showing a red blush right now........ oooh wheee...... OK, now for the reality. The June gloom is here to stay. Not going to go away. Even though we had a perfectly awful spring (which last year was great and gave the 'maters a runnning start that didn't happen this year at all), June is looking normal: nasty. OK, doesn't matter. Your tomatoes will still ripen. You will get very little dropoff of blossom to tomato bud in the next month because the temps won't go very low at night with the inversion, however anything that looks like its going to ripen will take for bloody ever compared to our inland (2 miles....) neighbors. The fact that you are growing in containers will increase the heat levels (better ripening) but decrease the total fruit set and size of the fruits over what you'd get in optimum ground conditions. I got great crops last year, in spite of the June gloom, but they took a long time to ripen and seemed to sit there forever with a faint muddly blush (all container plants as I have no dirt to plant in between deck and pool concrete). The advice I was given and followed which seemed to work was to water generously until a "substantial" growth of fruit had set and then water verrrrry abstemiously -- just enough to keep the plants from seriously wilting (I cheated a bit and underplanted my big pots (25 gal, redwood pots, two tomato plants to a pot) with parsley and marigolds which show the wilt sooner than the tomatoes -- when they wilted, I watered). The fruits that I got (through July-- the June gloom extended here) were delicious, though 1/2 the size of the expected and 1/2 the production that I had assumed from having planted the same plants in Palo Alto for several years before. Forced me to recognize that Palo Alto provides the perfect environment for tomatoes. La Jolla does not. Period. Each plant (San Diego, Green Zebra, Cherokee Purple, and Momotaro) gave approximately 1-2 smallish but delicious fruits a day (as opposed to Palo Alto at 5 full-blown fruits a day during the same period), but that was sufficient for my sort of "daily use" in salads, etc. I never harvested enough (even in August) to have a decent freezer supply for winter. My best "all round" protection last year came from GreenLight Rose Guard. Helped with bugs, fungus, and general pestiness. I supplemented it with BT because I had a big mid-June problem with some kind of inchworm thing (never clearly identified, but BT nailed 'em). My biggest problem hit at the end of July when I was savagely hit with tomato psyllids (see my post/research in the tomato forum). It was a very bad thing and virtually wiped out my "second flush" . With container gardening in this coastal environment, staging your tomatoes is key to getting a long production period. The benefit from being out of the inland extremes is that you and I will harvest tomatoes through January and later-- if we stage the plantings right (make sure you get the last set in by the first week in Nov.). The two plants that I set in at the beginning of October gave me their last fruits and gave up the ghost in the first week of March... Regarding the psyllids. I have seen none so far, but by July (whether I've seen them or not) I will be netting every pot in a fine-guage fabric to avoid the wholesale destruction the dang things caused last year. Hope this helps!

I hate hot weather so much that I know what would happen if I had AC.....I'd have it on the minute it got to 80 degrees and then I'd be using my air when everyone else is and we would have brown-outs or black-outs, so I'm just as well off without it.....and my electric bill doesn't climb.... The water is another issue. I have a lot of large trees and I see how the ash trees by the house are doing well and the outlying trees that have received little supplemental water are dropping leaves. I'm happiest with trees, so most of my water will now go to the trees and I'll let other areas go. I can do that as long as I don't go looking in nurseries or looking at Annie's list......LOL..if you see it, you gotta have it.