I can't help you, but I'll comment here, so that your post doesn't get lost on to the next page. :)
Carol

Hello :),

I Would recommend for you to check the david Austin website in the USA. I think any of their medium/larger roses could probably grow as large as you need, and to me they usually smell very nice. I do spray all my Austin’s and don’t know how they do without it. You mentioned wanting the large blooms you remember from childhood, if these are hybrid tea like blooms then David Austin’s may actually not be your style.

My other option when thinking about disease resistant would be to look into Kordes. They have outstanding disease resistance in my black spot heaven without spraying. There are also very fragrant ones with old fashion blooms. If you have time, take a look at the seasonal thread 2 where Cori Ann posted pictures of her Florentine by Kordes. I don’t usually love reds, but it is so gorgeous I want it. Hope others have great advice for you!

Where do I start?

First, the proper behavior on finding a locally appropriate rose locally is to fall over in a dead faint from shock. It has happened, but you really have to know what you are looking at, rather like someone who picks up a Wyeth at a garage sale. So if you want to buy good roses, you are ordering sometime this winter for spring delivery. Repeat bloomers will come from Palatine in Ontario because you *will* want them grafted onto a rootstock. Once bloomers will come from anywhere you can find them.

As for varieties, are you looking for climbers that need support, or large shrubs? I'm not clear on that. For once-blooming shrubs, most are going to be in the 4-5 ft range, which sounds shorter than you would like. If that size is OK, the odds are in your favor with gallicas. Damasks and albas require some research since more than half will have disease problems. Then there are the ones with Napoleonic tendencies that want to take over the known world.

Some things you can start looking at are Quadra, Baltimore Belle, and Darlow's Enigma. Your site is shadier than optimal, and that is going to affect what roses will be successful.

Hi Siana, I'm 6a HV too. I know what it's like just getting started. But the journey will be longer then you think. I still read post and learn new stuff after 10 years. I just learned something new from the post above me. As a newbie, mistakes will be made (if you do it solely on your own). And the harsh winters will kill your progress at times. You'll find yourself starting over (all over at times). I'm in full sun completely so I can pretty much grow any rose, no hydrangeas or azaleas but any rose. My advice to you is to try not to catch the body bag disease lots of us have. Buy quality roses, learn how to fertilize and have your protection plan for winter in place until your roses are established. And never stop reading. I think I would be further along if I made better purchases early on. But you don't know what you don't know. Those body bags and low quality roses may look healthy then one or two years maybe less they die off or don't bloom. All that work down the tubes. It's too late for me, I'm like stage 4 body bag disease, but you can still be a rose snob and buy quality. Decide the type of roses you like and order from a quality nursery. That's key. Once you have your main bed established. It's okay to pot up some body bags here and there for fun. Some people have done well with them. I have a few that have really taken off and are main attractions in my garden but the majority have died.

Wow thank you all for all the wonderful advice! I do try and restrain myself this year until I’m better informed. Mad_gallica, I’m still considering if I should do climbers with a support, or large shrubs, or mix them. Quadra and Florentine sound very tempting, but I figure in the long run for maintenace, it’s perhaps wiser to just keep them all shrubs with stiff canes? I suppose my number one priority is vigor - I want roses that grow strong, tall and large, at least 5-6 ft, and don’t die back to the ground every year in my zone. Type of flower, flower density and scent are secondary, I could really love them all, as long as the plant is robust. Napoleonic tendencies actually sound good to me, my whole garden is very wild, I have the space and I’m not afraid of a beastly thing or two :) HalloBlondie, my 6 hours of sun also doesn’t start until after 10am, so it looks like that the dew is another obstacle to consider. Another reason why I need to pick something with great disease resistance. I will look into Palatine since you all consider them a good grower for next year. My only issue is that growers always make things sound so much better than they are, and naturally don’t mention the downsides, or how it performs in more specific circumstances. This is why I want to know what works for those of you with similar conditions. Please keep any other suggestions coming, I am looking into all of them!

This is a really interesting project! If you are going to put a fence up to support climbers, also think about mixing in a few ramblers. They will mostly be once-blooming, but they will give you the advantage of size. (I am thinking that many roses will suffer substantial winter die-back in your zone, and you may find a cold hardy rambler or two that will help you get the height you want for that glorious green backdrop). You could also consider doing a double layer of roses, with climbers/ramblers/large bushes trained as climbers against a fence (or other support) and a shorter bushes in front of them. If I were you, I'd post this question on the Antique Roses Forum as well. Please post pictures when this project is complete! It sounds lovely!

If you choose the right roses, I expect your biggest problem with
this project is going to be tree seedlings. If the bed is too deep, you
will end up crawling under a lot of roses to pull them out, and if you
don't pull them regularly, then they are much harder to control. So you
don't want an overgrown mess of roses because that will turn into an
overgrown mess of first-stage forest succession growth.

Regarding
variety selection, for many decades the rose industry pushed a
one-size-fits-all mentality. If the roses they wished to sell didn't do
well in your area, you either didn't grow roses, or spent a lot more
time and effort doing it. There is still a fair amount of that going on.
People here will recommend roses they think you should grow, paying
absolutely no attention to how well they are doing to do here. There are a fair number of roses that will do what you want. Finding them is an entirely different matter, particularly since I don't think I have a single rose from a nursery still in business. We started when there were several excellent nurseries in Maine that understood the climate, and had the Canadian connections to get the roses. One of the more bizarre (to me) aspects of all this is that the demand for these roses completely outpaces the supply, but if anything the supply keeps shrinking.

There are some good books on the subject. Robert Osborne runs a nursery in New Brunswick. The first edition of his book was called 'Hardy Roses' in the US. Suzanne Verrier's book 'Rosa Gallica' is everything you ever wanted to know about those roses. She also wrote a similar book on rugosas, but IME, you don't have enough sun for those. Several of the big Explorer roses should be on your list. I already mentioned Quadra, but Captain Samuel Holland and John Cabot have also done well for me. They are in reality large shrubs with a strong tendency to splay out if not given support, so they are usually described as climbers.

IMHO the verdict is still out on the new, much hyped Kordes roses. The northeast can be extremely conservative when it comes to trying new varieties, and I haven't seen enough feedback from locations I understand to guess at either real hardiness or real disease resistance. The Kordes Fairy Tale roses that I am familiar with I'd rate as 'good'. They are far from perfect, but much better than any other bedding roses I know. My suspicion is that the climbers are probably about the same.

John Davis does very well for me in zone 5b. Even after our terrible winter, I only had to tip prune him, and he gets about 7 feet tall. I have it on a trellis and it is beautiful. A really big spring flush and then a couple smaller flushes.

If you're looking for a good yellow, I'd recommend Sunsprite.

Not only does it have fairly good disease resistance, while most yellow varieties in general tend to be more disease vulnerable, but I'd also recommend this variety even if it didn't have anything to do with disease resistance. Sunsprite comes closer to a truer yellow hue than many other "yellow" roses do.

I hope MiGreenThumb will post his outstanding photo of Therese Bugnet. You won't be able to resist after seeing it.

Among once bloomers, 'Ispahan' would be a wonderful choice for medium pink. It's one of the hardiest damasks and blooms longer than most other old garden roses.

Since you don't mind Napoleonic tendencies, then gallicas should give you a lot of choices in the dark red and purple color ranges, as mad-gallica suggests. I have 'Charles de Mills' and it's the only rose I planted in a large barrel in the ground to contain the suckers since my gardening space is more limited than yours.

I've tried to find 'Baltimore Belle' ever since I saw it on one of mad_gallica's photos, but without much success. I was surprised to discover that good sources for hardy ramblers are few and far between...

Have you tried Rosefire Limited. They don't have a large selection but they carry a lot of hardy OGRs.

vaporvac, every once in a while I check the inventory at Rose Fire in Ohio, no hardy ramblers. Their offerings might be more substantial if someone visits them rather than through mail. I say it because I was also interested in a couple of OGR shrubs but, while listed (I assume at one point they were available), they have not been among their available roses for mail order for quite some time.

You might try searching the website of High Country Roses in Denver. They have some interesting found roses.

'Alba Medilland' is a hardy, repeat blooming rambler, or that is how I think of it. The canes are very flexible and could be wound along a fence. I found out the hard way it does not like to be pruned. My alba/Damask hybrid 'Belle Amour' is growing nicely in partial shade without disease. 'Duchesse de Rohan' grows the size you want but I don't know if it will tolerate any shade. 'Yolande de Aragon' grows to about 5'. The foliage is a pretty soft green; the blooms are large, flat, very double and exceptionally fragrant. Again, I don't know how much shade it will take.

The best climber i have so far is Don juan. This winter the weather in my area was o to -5 for several weeks . It had very little did back and has about 10 blooms already this season

Hi Ms Siana, how nice to see you here. Andrews mom. You wait until fall to order own root DA roses or roses unlimited annual sale that’s coming up in June cuz I am having problem dig a hole that’s deep enough to bury some of the Grafted roses. Our winter is too cold. Go to Newburgh/ POK adams and start looking at which ones you like. Adams do not warranty their roses:( which I was told by the cashier differently last yr.

housedecorchange, someone suggested planting grafted roses at an angle so one needn't dig such a deep hole yet still have the graft well buried. I tried it and it works, but I did need a wider hole.