My all time favorite rose is Mrs B R Cant, but I am not sure if it is hardy to zone 6. It grows here in Richmond on a windy hill top with no protection and no die back though. But it is really big. But oh, soooo fragrant. Blush Noisette is fragrant, healthy, hardy to zone 6, a loveley blush pink, and good repeat bloomer.

You already got terrific responses to your questions, but to summarize: 1. Cold zones bury the graft because we need winter survival. Warm zones don't bury it (that's where the advice comes from) because they don't worry about survival and don't want the rootstock to grow suckers if buried. In cold zones, if we don't bury the graft all we may have left is the rootstock surviving, so we don't really have a choice if we're growing fussy HTs and floribundas. 2. You find the best cool tips about things like alfalfa (spreading alfalfa hay around your bushes in spring really can boost cane growth) and other rose ideas here on GardenWeb. Seriously, that's a good reason to keep checking in here and we try to be helpful when we get questions. Paul Zimmerman also has some good tips on his website, though he's in zone 7 and occasionally some of his tips don't apply to colder zones (like pruning recommendations). 3. We only prune to the ground if we have to. If we have 8-12" of surviving healthy cane we throw a rose party nearby. The recommendations to prune a rose back to encourage new growth are also for warmer zones where they don't have significant cane death and need to prune out old growth to rejuvenate it. That is not an issue for 80-90% of my roses, but the few that always have surviving cane will get maybe a third of their canes pruned down to 2' or so every year or two to keep the canes active. As I say, this is almost never needed on HTs but instead shrubs. I wouldn't do that for a climber since you want the main canes to stay long, but you can prune back the laterals that branch off the main cane. A bottom line point to keep in mind as you filter rose advice is to take it from places that are similar to your climate. Warm zone advice doesn't translate well to cold zones, and dry zone advice may not translate well to damp climates. Cynthia

Does your road ever get plowed to clear snow in winter? Ever get salted? If the answer to either question is yes, you don't want shrubs, especially evergreens like boxwood between the road and the fence. Also, how much room is there? I am not entirely sure that there is room for boxwoods in that spot unless you want to learn how to shear them when they start to get larger a few years down the road. Do folks ever park along the road? If yes, how would a passenger get out of the car? While what you have there may have gotten weedy and out of control, there may be other perennials that will do well there if you plant just a couple of types of hardy, dense-growing perennials such as one of the groundcover perennial geraniums. Regardless of what you have there, it will need something for weed control, but which plants you choose may increase or reduce the amount of weeding. The easiest is grass since all you have to do is mow and weed whack along the fence. Dense growing perennials of just one or two kinds might work. If no snow, some densely growing shrubs might work if well-mulched. Regardless, anything other than grass will need some weeding, at least for a while until it fills in, and even then will need some a few times annually based on my experience. For your backyard, are you interested in tall deciduous trees or evergreens, or do you want shrubs? Or some tall and some shorter plants? Is it more that you don't want to see all of the neighbors' yard or just all of the fence? Do you want year round coverage or is that not important?

I found this interesting. I'm definitely going to try it next year. "Not only do they look surprisingly great together, but parsley also has many benefits for roses. Parsley deters many unwanted insects from your roses, including aphids and rose beetles. Even better, this herb may actually enhance the fragrance of your roses."