In this garden 'Francois Rabelais' has been essentially rust free for more than 10 years. It is a short grower and has excellent rebloom. Unfortunately it has no fragrance. I like 'The Prince' as well, wonderful fragrance, gorgeous flower, but a dainty grower and TLC will benefit it greatly. A little afternoon shade to protect from sunburn and crisping flowers helps as well. 'Rouge Royale' has beautiful flowers but the rust is horrific. Rust and mildew resistance, 'Tuscan Sun' has been highly superior. 'Julia Child' also. Those are the first that come to mind, offhand.

Ravishing of course ! I'm on your tail Diane, going through the Roses Forum posts , drinking my tea in bed. i couldn't resist the topic but should rest my eyes in awhile. My squat little RR after I trimmed it down for Winter is nestled into leaves. It's the first year I have tried a leaf blanket instead of just hilling the roses with extra dirt. I hope it won't create a big soggy mess in Spring. i thought the leaves could then be worked into the dirt for added nourishment. It may start forest of ginkgo trees. My RR got some yucky leaves in Fall; after the worst leaves were plucked, and a few milk showers, it has perfect leaves again. I'm learning what these roses like. For anyone considering Rouge Royale, you won't believe your eyes, the bloom is outrageous . I totally agree with you Diane for a vase rose it's hard to beat even by any Austin. My RR baby came from Northland Rosarium - I love their nursery.

Lovely pictures of your roses, Sara-Ann! I have tried to grow Double Delight 5 times now in my zone 5 yard, including in the fussy-pants tea protected section, and it never survives for me. Zone 6 must be its limit. Moses, FWIW I haven't tried Rouge Royal as many times but in 2 or 3 tries it hasn't survived. I put in in the supposed zone 6 part of my yard but I think it was toward the cold side of that bed so I'll give it one more try. Still, I think zone 6 protected at the outside would be its limits. Most of the other Romanticas are borderline at best in zone 5, the exception being Leonardo da Vinci who blooms like a champ and overwinters with some or all of his cane. Traviata is a much more reliably hardy Romantica red in my yard. It puts out a couple of blooms at a time, but you're right that it's a typical HT bloom pattern. Cynthia

@noseometer...(7A, SZ10, Albuquerque) Yes it's very very dry here, except in winter when we get plenty of snow. I definitely had some beautiful blooms this year, and I know better than to compare my 2nd season roses with very mature ones, but still I don't nurture them nearly as much as a lot of other people on this forum seem to. I really love flowers and would love it if all my roses were cranking out huge amounts of blooms, but I'm also trying hard to keep the garden as self-sustaining as possible. I don't have livestock so I buy manure/compost, but all the other "food" the garden gets is just chopped up grass, pruning scraps, homemade compost, and shredded leaves. I hope that those things bring in all the worms to make worm castings for me right in the soil. I have a bale of alfalfa that we ended up with accidentally that I'll be spreading later on this year. But even though I can see it works well for people, I'm trying to avoid the temptation of buying food/supplements. I do get pangs of jealousy sometimes though when I see some of the photos on here.