Roselady, I think our climates may be similar, so I'll offer suggestions of a few, possibly OGR compatible, deep red HTs which are no spray, low disease in my garden: Francis Dubreuil (Barcelona)--small shrub, Mr. Lincoln--quite tall and upright and Black Magic---quite tall and upright. The last may be unavailable now, unfortunately. Some HPs also grow more up instead of out, but they run wider than HTs. If you wish to add a Pink, I recommend uprightish HT Madame Caroline Testout. Your garden is already a lovely place, and your new beds will make it one of the most impressive residential gardens I've seen! I applaud your desire to experiment by mixing classes and colors of roses. Whatever you create is truly yours and an inspiration to all, encouraging us to think outside the categories and into our own unique visions. Carol

Beautiful setting, Rosylady! I'm sure it will be lovely.

These are three of my favorites. Disease resistant, good fragrance, long booming.

Are you adding companion plants? If so, one way to meld the different reds/purples/magentas is with contrasting/complementary colors between them. Considering the colors of your other beds, perhaps you could put in companion plants with colors found in the other beds. Personally, I like to pair light and dark, so what I'd do for the red bed is choose companion plants in soft yellow, white, and blush-pink. For the apricot bed, look for dark purple, dark blue, and dark blue-leaning (not scarlet!) red. For the pink bed, I'd look for purples, blues, and stronger yellows running through golden. Orange might work as well, but I'm not personally partial to that color. With the pinks, again put light next to dark -- dark purple next to light pink, and lavender next to dark pink, for example. Then with the white bed, pick just about any color, so long as it's deep and dark in hue. This might be the only case of me actually adding orange blooms -- to set off the whites.

Considering it's a rose bed, I wouldn't plant any other shrubs in there -- stick to things that pretty much die back to the ground in Winter. In the beginning, you can play with colors by planting annuals to see how they blend. For tall things, I'd suggest Cosmos, or Cleome, or even the sunflower 'Italian White'. When you know what companion colors work, then start looking at perennials and self-seeding annuals and biennials -- I'm thinking white Digitalis purpurea and yellow D. grandiflora would go great in the red bed, popping up here and there. Once the climbers get big, you could look into some of the shorter type-3 Clematis to grow into them, and they'd bloom while the roses are pausing in mid-Summer.

:-)

~Christopher

Wow this looks like an AMAZING project!! It is going to be a traffic-stopper in a few years!!

I would recommend the red HT "Firefighter" - healthy, vigorous, upright, lots of strongly scented true red blooms. Plus its a "9/11 memorial" rose.

If I were in zone 8 I would want to grow the bulbs: oxblood lilies, and amaryllis, and lycoris radiata -- all red to complement red roses. Also the red-flowering peach tree "red baron" in early spring. I am a fan of the tassel flower, Emilia javanica, both orange and red, the chocolate cosmos, the red sages, and the berried yaupon for autumn color.

Dark Desire is nice, is a taller one and fragrant. Gorgeous gardens!!

In my climate the deep red fragrant HT 'Royal William' (aka 'Duftzauber 84') is a very good performer. It gets bushy, full and leafy, produces lots of blooms in every flush (although it could repeat more often) and is mostly unaffected by our main fungal affliction, PM. It is also not particularly thirsty for an HT.

If you want to experiment with something more finicky, thin, very tall and PM susceptible, then Papa Meilland produces the most glorious and most fragrant deep blackish red blooms I've seen on an HT. Darker and, to my nose, much more fragrant than Mr. Lincoln. It is a rose which needs pampering but I could not be without it because of the blooms and the fragrance.

For a lighter red, 'Ingrid Bergman' is a good grower also, producing good large medium red (not orangish) blooms, is mostly PM resistant and her blooms are very good for cutting. No particular fragrance to my nose though.

Those three, along with Mr. Lincoln are the red HTs I grow. I have 2 copies of each so Kalliope can have a few red roses in the vase through most of the year since she loves them. All of them produce pointy classic HT blooms.

I have no idea about rose performance in a blackspot area as we get very little of it over here. All my HTs are budded so no idea about own root performance either.

I forgot to mention I also grow Isabelle Renaissance. This is a deep red very fragrant rose producing trusses of very large blooms. Bloom shape is not classic pointy HT but reminds one of a large HP. The only way I can describe it is a floribunda on lots of steroids. It grows very tall and sturdy. It will exceed 6ft if you let it and I can only recommend it for the back of a border, the middle of a bed, a specimen rose or a short stand alone climber against a wall. Very healthy in my climate.

So many great suggestions...thank you!

For those of you who grow Mr. Lincoln...do you have any pics and can you tell me more about it? I read lots of rave reviews online about it.

Nick, of the reds you grow, which one has the most purple-y color?

I also love all these companion planting suggestions. I'm trying to keep things very simple so that my yard guys can work easily in it and not have to take care of too many different kinds of plants. That was one of the reasons I made this a dedicated rose garden: so it would be more straightforward in terms of care. I wish I had the time and energy to do all the maintenance myself! I could never attempt to grow a garden like this without help. My husband, alas, is completely nonplussed by gardening. It's completely wasted on him! haha

One thing I like to grow with roses are herbs. I find that they really do help keep insects away. The herb that grows really well in my garden and that I want to plant in every bed is oregano. It has purple flowers too which will go well in the red bed.

This garden is on a road that's a scenic walking road for the place live. Lots of people walk and bike past my house and they are loving seeing this garden develop! I've met so many people since I started this project in March!

Roses are extremely unfashionable in my area. I am curious to see what the reaction will be once the garden matures a bit.

I have an area up near the road where I'm going to put out a table and give away cut flowers. Or my children can sell them. I am so looking forward to the summer!! The own root roses will still be small, but the grafted ones will be blooming pretty well! I will be posting lots of pics and asking lots of questions!

No one of the above mentioned HTs is really purply in colour in my climate neither do they seem to fade to purple when the blooms get older. They are just different tones of dark red to my eye with IB being the lighter and PM the darker. My purpliest red is Austin's William Shakespeare 2000, a plant of which I love its blooms but hate its skewed growth pattern and mildew tendencies. I don't think that DA have ever managed to produce a really good red (or white for that matter). Every one of their reds seems to be lacking in one or more departments, be that vigourousness, disease resistance, growth pattern or fragrance.

I have Lincoln. It is smells wonderful.

Jin

Crimson Glory is an old HT from 1925. It is VERY fragrant. Here is a pic - it fades towards the blue end of the spectrum, so should do well with your red/purple colors. It also comes in a climbing version. Here are three pics showing it at different stages, and in different light conditions.

Jackie

Mr. Lincoln is not my favorite red HT; it is very leggy and bare-looking.

In your beds this may not be a problem if the bottom of the plant will be blocked by other plants.

Thank you, Jaqueline. I was going to mention CG as I'm growing the climbing version. I second the suggestions for Barcelona and Dark Desire and would add Souv. de Dr. Jamain and Chrysler Imperial. Cori Ann grows it really well in Ca., but I don't know how they would do for your climate. Will you spray? Valentine is one to consider for a low grower. My impression was that Firefighter was a more modern red; if this isn't the case I'd love to know!

Nanadoll, your roses are beautiful. All 3 are so stunning. I am taken by their beauty.

Lincoln is very leggy and there are so many other options that you can grow .

Roselady, your garden will be spectacular display of roses. Please post pics when they start blooming.

Jin

nanadoll...what incredible timing! I have been trying to order Ascot for two years now, ever since I saw your pictures back then. It has been sold out every time I go to the Palantine website.

After looking at the beautiful pics you posted today, I checked one more time and it was in stock!! I was so shocked!!

I ordered one since it's on the large side. Then I had to order at least two more roses since that's the minimum they ship. I saw they had Dark Desire in stock, so I bought 3, on a whim. I love the coloring...it's got a lot of purple which I think will go well with the other roses.

I have been torn over Mr Lincoln and Crimson Glory. The only reason I don't buy Crimson glory is that it's bushier and not as narrow and upright, which I was looking for. But, I don't like bare legs on hybrid teas at all! If Mr. Lincoln is consistently bare legged then I don't think I would be happy with that.

Does anyone have any full bush shots of Mr Lincoln?

Jacqueline...what is the Crimson Glory bush like?

Tantau's Ascot is a very good looking rose in the DA vein but virtually scentless to my nose which, for me, is a dealbreaker.

Oh Nick...say it isn't so!

Helpmefind says "mild tea fragrance"

I'll be ok with that!

I guess the Mr. Lincoln or Crimson Glory will have to make up for Ascot!

If you have several other very fragrant roses, are you sure it will matter if you sneak in one or two that aren't? I'm not a "fragrance fiend" (lol) myself,so I don't really know how those of you who care a lot about fragrance feel, but to me fragrance can be very elusive. Some years, for example, Paul's Himalayan Musk perfumes the entire area during it's all-too-brief blooming period, but last spring I didn't notice much of anything. Other roses seem to be fragrant only during certain times of the day,or lose their fragrance once cut, etc, etc, etc. Also. to me at least, there's the "too much of a good thing" factor. After wallowing in the inebriating perfume of ,say, Mme. Isaac Pereire and others like it, I truly treasure the light,citrus-y scent of Harlekin (HMF calls its' scent "strong wild rose",whatever that means. To me, it's very light,fresh, and lemony; I wouldn't use the word "strong".) There is such a thing as over-kill! And note that Nik specified "to my nose".Sensory perceptions can and do differ so much from person to person, so for all of these reasons personally I'd advise you to just be happy that you finally snagged an Ascot. After all,if in the long run you decide you don't like it, your plan DOES admit the possibility of making eliminations...

"wallowing in the inebriating perfume of Madame Isaac Pereire..."

I can't wait to experience that!

Madame Isaac Periere is the rose that inspired me to plant this rose garden. It was fragrancenutter's pictures over on the roses forum that captivated me The one of her MIP trained on the wall in full flush.