I think Julia Child is about as clean as Elina and Belinda's Dream. Any rose may get blackspot if the conditions are right, but these three are among the most resistant, and also have great vigor to oversome disease. I would also put

Bolero

St Patrick

in the same category.

I like Valentine, the old red Floribunda. Healthy, compact, and floriferous. I also like Thomas Affleck and Cinco de Mayo (will spot on lower leaves but rebounds and fast bloom cycle). Plum Perfect has been doing very well for me, too. It's new this year, but so far it has stayed healthy and small, with a nice rebloom cycle. Another one to look at is Crazy Love.

List so far. This will help me decide which new roses I'd like to trial, as well as having a list for the very hot and humid south.

• Belinda's Dream - large pink flower

• Dame de Coeur - medium red

• Elina - large lemon yellow

• Thomas Affleck

• Cinco de Mayo

• Plum Perfect

• Valentine

• Crazy Love

• Julia Child

• Bolero

• St Patrick

Looks like a good start! I also grow mostly antique roses, no-spray, but I've enjoyed branching out a bit.

I just thought of one more - I just planted it myself, so I can't vouch for it yet, but take a look at Lilyfinch's Flamenco Rosita (also known as Ivor's Rose). Rose Petals Nursery has it.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/4580310/you-simply-need-flamenco-rosita?n=20

I live in a humid hot, hot, hot, climate. Truth be told after one season of trying to be a no spray garden, I've given up. I started spraying last week. To me it just not worth the blooms I'm going to lose due to blackspot. I feel blackspot is just a way of life here lol. With that said my madame Joseph Schwartz was really great about not losing leaves and putting out gorgeous blooms. Also Peggy Martin, if your looking for a climber! Another one you wouldn't normaly consider is queen elizabeth. She actually does really well in both the heat and the humidity. So much so, I got a second one. Did I mention they are thriving even after a hurricane and being submerged in water for 2 weeks :)

forgot to mention zone 9b on the gulf coast in Texas

I have Ivor and I can vouch for its disease resistance and good rebloom, thanks needmoremulch. I have both Peggy Martin and Joseph Schwartz and I ike both of them.. I will have to try Queen Elizabeth thanks JackieDavis87

How about Eliza. After researching her, I've decided to try her in the spring. Numerous posters as well as various google sources insist she has no bs problems and that she is floriferous. I'm excited to find her since I was also looking for a taller rose (roughly the size of Elina).

Yes, Elina is a good rose, but she does occasionally get a bit of BS. Much better than most of the roses in my garden, however.

Easter Basket, a floribunda, is very BS resistant.

Kate

Valrose,

It's always refreshing to go in new directions. I wish you success in your project.

Although I garden here in W. PA, and have no personal experience with growing roses in Florida, may I direct your attention to the Kordes, Sunbelt Roses.

They are reported to do particularly well in heat and hopefully blackspot also. It seems that the Kordes emphasis on disease resistance across the board in their rose breeding program these days is paying off nicely. Many are receiving the ADR award for their excellent winter hardiness and disease resistance.

Savannah, Polar Express, Desmond Tutu, Plum Perfect, and South Africa are the Sunbelt Roses I know about. There may by more.

They are supposed to have blooms that stand up to heat and intense sunlight. The bushes are also reported to be not as prone to poop out, and slow down in flower production during the worst of the summer.

I grew Savannah a while ago. It had a beautiful flower with a great fragrance, and wonderfully dark, glossy foliage. Its negatives were excessive thorniness, pancake flat blooms when fully unfurled, and poor winter hardiness. I removed it because the hope of it putting on size here was not achieved.

Although Beverly is not promoted as a Sunbelt Rose, this very fragrant HT is one of Kordes' most prolific bloomers, with incredibly quick repeats. Its flowers may not hold up in the heat and sun. Look into this rose. It may work for you.

BTW, Elina is one lovely rose. My mentor in roses held Elina as his favorite hybrid tea, hands down. The blooms literally glow.

Moses

JackieDavis87 Did you grow Queen Elizabeth is a spray free program, was she on her own roots or grafted?

Moses Thank you for the suggestions. I agree with you about Elina and I will have to try Sunbelt Roses, Beverly and Savannah.

Kate I'll try Eliza and Easterbasket

Growing roses in the deep south is challenging . Hot weather starts in April and may not relent until October. Here, I am also challenged with intermittent cold weather with lows going down well below freezing and then returning to highs in the 80s, this causes roses to break dormancy and then get hit by another cold snap, so resistant to die back diseases is a necessity.

Though black spot is a major problem, I don't think that we are any worse off than many areas. We also have Cerporosa, while it doesn't cause as much defoliation as blackspot but it is unsightly. Roses that are resistant to black spot may be high susceptible to Cerposorsa.

Many roses just don't like the hot summers, many human residents feel the same way staying indoors almost all the long hot season.

The southern rose in a no spray garden must be disease tolerant, heat loving, cold tolerant, resistant to Cerporosa, Black spot and die back. It must be vigorous enough to recover from insect damage and resistant to chili thrip is a big plus. To make people want to grow it, it should be almost everblooming and have enough flowers to look stunning. I grow many antiques that have all those characteristic. Mrs. B.R. Cant is an example as well as are many other Teas, Chinas, Noisettes, Hybrid Musks and Polyanthas.

The challenge is to find modern roses that share these characteristics. Fortuniana is a vigorous southern rambler with clean foliage. Roses with Fortuniana root stock inherit some of the characteristics from the root stock though what may actually be gene transfer across the graft.

The Modern Sprayfree Southern rose list now includes:

• Belinda's Dream - large pink flower

• Dame de Coeur - medium red

• Elina - large lemon yellow

• Thomas Affleck

• Cinco de Mayo

• Plum Perfect

• Valentine

• Crazy Love

• Julia Child

• Bolero

• St Partick

• Ivor

Dark Desire is very disease resistant. But it does have single blooms and gets very tall canes which are very thorny.

Earthkind Roses should fit your bill.

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/earthkindroses

I grew most of them in Galveston and never had any issues with blackspot at all on them really. Ducher was a fabulous one in addition to Belindas.

Also, Easy Going and Easy Living were very no spray for me.

In full sun I had good luck with Twilight Zone and Ebb Tide.

Easter Basket is very BS resistant here is SE Virginia; our climate is similar to that of Charleston! Makes a nice bushy shrub; just a great garden rose.

Also very good:

Savannah: nicely scented blooms with an old-fashioned look on a vigorous but so far awkward plant. Foliage not so great.

Beverly: astonishing number of huge perfect blooms which last well on the bush and in the vase. Very vigorous and clearly will be tall and wide. I have plants in my garden and a public garden and both really took off great the first year.

Molineux: this Austin was planted late, stuck with no morning sun. It was very distressed, broken canes and wilting foliage (Lowe's). Austins are mostly impossible here due to the heat and humidity. Surprise! This has been clean, putting on growth steadily and it is a blooming FOOL! Sure glad I tried it.

Sweet Drift and Peach Drift: these two low growing Meilland shrubs are great in the garden. Sweet Drift reblooms several times a year with huge fluffy trusses. Peach Drift is a very pretty color blend and a non-stop bloomer. Both have pretty shiny green rounded foliage perfectly in scale with the blooms.

Even in our conditions it's gotten a whole lot easier to be a non-spray rose gardener.

Now all I need are some varieties that aren't appealing to voles..!

Oops, Valrose-- Just noticed your said that the Drifts did not have clean foliage for you.

For other Southerners, Sweet Drift and Peach Drift may be worth a try with full sun and good air circulation. Had trouble with Coral Drift and Red Drift was meh..

FWIW, I tried Julia Child here, and it blackspotted very badly. Long gone.

I tried Cinco de Mayo and it went Deado in Juno. It was my biggest blackspot magnet until it died. Tried everything to keep it alive and healthy. I may have bought a badly diseased plant and didn't know it. My experience is the plant requires a lot of involvement getting started and fighting blackspot may be difficult if not a losing battle. There's better plants to try imho. I left it in the ground hoping there might be a miracle spurt of growth to emerge but nope.

That's so funny. Julia Child was a blackspot magnet for me, but Cinco de Mayo has been really good here. Garden location is everything, even from one Gulf Coast garden to another.

Two roses that I have in South Palm Beach County are Outta the Blue and Regatta. Both of these put on LARGE displays of flowers Outta the Blue smells divine and is a Floribunda. Regatta says it is a hybrid team, but I do get sprays like a floribunda. Neither seem to have much disease, but I do have to spray for insects. I have lots and lots of chili thrips and sri lanka weevil. Then my neighbors have a white flies! GRRR. So I have to stay after the insects in the heat of the summer.... I also have Beverly which seems to be doing quite well though I have only had it a year, but that being said it did go through July, August, and September in Florida.... That is doing pretty good. McCarnteny does really well. Nice and healthy. The weevils do love him though. He gets big here in Florida and you can get a nice bouquet. Another favorite, (I am getting a second if I can find one) is Gentle Giant. Long stems for cut flowers. Puts out new roses constantly and is healthy for me.

I commend you on your wanting to have a no-spray garden. I've tried with little success down here in SF, especially since I like the modern roses with the florist rose form. With that said, here are the ones that were pretty strong (nothing stands a chance against the Chili Thrips when they are at their peak):

<Many of these have already been mentioned>

* Belinda's Dream

* Elina

* Beverly

* Easy Does It

* Pope John Paul

* The McCarthy Rose

* Coretta Scot King

* Grande Dame

* Miss Congeniality

* Papa Meiland

* Pink Promise

I'm sure I'm forgetting a few, but these have been strong for me and, with the right soil and fertilization program, have the capacity to be show-stoppers.

- Adrian.

Another Kordes with very high quality blooms is Pink Enchantment aka Souv. de Baden-Baden. Even cleaner than Beverly.

We're only 8A here and near the border of 7B. Not sure how it will do in zone 9. The distributor doesn't consider it to be a heat-lover.

Hi Adrian,

You must certainly mean Francis Meilland, not Papa Meilland, correct?

In my experience Papa Meilland could be used as a testing subject for blackspot research. Francis Meilland is indeed exceptionally disease resistant.

Do you know any exhibitors within driving distance? Exhibitors often have large healthy roses they no longer want. This may be the best way of getting roses of sufficient size to resist insect damage.

Ben you are very correct! Sorry for the confusion. Francis Meilland, not Papa Meilland. I've never grown the later, and after your comment I never will, lol.

-Adrian.

I agree on the Mother of Pearl.