Generally the repeat blooming northern OGR are not spot resistant like the teas and chinas you are used to. But the once-blooming albas and gallicas are iron hardy (meaning cold-resistant), and most of them are spot-resistant. Generally they will not need much irrigation or fertilizer once they are established. The once-blooming, early Asian yellows and once-blooming ramblers are also easy to grow and will extend the season of bloom. If you have mostly once-bloomers, you mostly bypass the Japanese beetles that ravage roses in July and August. Among repeat-bloomers, 'Souvenir de la Malmaison' and its several sports stand out in my eastern 7a garden. If grown without fungicide, they get blackspot, but not as badly as most roses. Then some modern roses to try include 'Earth Song', 'Bolero', 'The Generous Gardener', 'Munstead Wood', 'Laguna', 'Quadra', 'Carefree Sunshine', and 'Caramela'. These are spot-resistant in many gardens. If you haven't had much blackspot this year, it will probably get worse, and most roses will defoliate repeatedly. Micronized sulfur and copper soap are two products that are considered organic and that will help a lot with blackspot if sprayed every week

An own root Banksiae will withstand water stress much more successfully than many own root types, particularly evergreen roses (Teas, Chinas, HTs, etc.). They are harder wooded and are able to shut down and exist when conditions are terrible. They have tremendous root systems compared to many, even Dr. Huey. When rating commercial roses for any kind of soil and climate performance, what kind of roots they have makes a tremendous difference. Huey is rather extensive and persistent, but even it suffers greatly in heat, aridity and extreme drought. I have a very large, double white Banksiae in the very loose, very dry, un irrigated slope at the southern side of the rear deck which receives direct, full southern sun about 80% of the time. The ONLY "irrigation" it ever receives is either rain or the extremely infrequent hosing off the deck. I cut it off the deck a month ago and it already has a good fifteen feet of "wands" thrown up on to the deck, both from out side it as well as through the openings between the floor boards. Everything on that slope requires watering except that Banksiae and the volunteer black walnuts and peppers. There is a newer terrace which begins about fifteen feet away from that spot, but in the same exposure. It contains seedlings, the Atmore Lamarque, Reve d'Or, and George Washington Richardson. These MUST be deeply watered weekly if temps are in the eighties or above. That blamed Banksiae was planted there 35 years ago, watered weekly its first year, then left to its own devices. The Myrtus communis compacta in that line was well established when the house was bought in 1975. In all that time, it has only received rain and it is nearly six feet tall and much wider. Until I began planting back there last year, only the three existing roses and one crepe myrtle were irrigated and that was weekly (at most) by the gardener who kept the place trimmed and leaves blown off. Otherwise, there is no irrigation system and no one else dragged a hose around to water. Lili Marleen, a well established plant in 1975 when the house was bought, has Manetii stock escaping from under it. the Lili Marleen was nearly gone, but the Manetii has inch and a half thick canes exploding in all directions which I'm working back so both can be maintained. Manetii made it all these years on weekly watering and rain. If the wood is hard and dense enough and the root system sufficiently vigorous, it MAY work with weekly supplementation. Softer wooded types or those whose root systems aren't as invasive, are going to struggle terribly, or outright fail. And this is in the Encino Hills where we get more coastal fogs and generally more rain than many hotter, more inland areas. This is the Wunderground calendar for Historic Lincoln Park in Pomona showing temps and rainfall for the month. I selected it as the elevation is similar to ours here. http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KFUL/2012/11/19/MonthlyHistory.html#calendar This is the closest one to here, though it is 200' lower than I am. http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KVNY/2012/11/19/MonthlyHistory.html#calendar It might be interesting viewing the historic data for the month as it shows comparative heat and precipitation. I know the performance of many plants here in Encino as well as the Santa Clarita area, where I grew over twelve-hundred roses for over eighteen years. I can well imagine what should be expected from them with little to no irrigation there in Pomona. If you select wisely, plant properly and irrigate sufficiently until they are well established, you might well succeed. But, your selections would be better skewed toward Banksiaes, Fortuniana and deciduous, xerophytic species. They possess the extensive, vigorous root systems, harder wood with greater sunburn resistance, and the ability to suspend their activity sufficiently to withstand the extremes in heat and drought with the least damage. Kim

Jim, Yep, I'm happy I asked here! Not only great answers, but unlimited other people get to benefit from the knowledge, too. Zeedman, AGAIN thanks for your input!! I had thought about the 50 degrees night rule... He lives in the Goshen Hole in SE Wyoming ... foreman of a 10,000 acre cattle ranch and his provided house is on the same water meter as the cattle tanks, so he can use drip irrigation all year. He turns on the soaker hoses and goes off for his day of working cattle and raising cow food... As for cold nites... last year when we were discussing plants for him to try, he reminded me that he could still get a frost on May 31. He very successfully grew Super Sioux tomato, Buttercup squash, and Cajun Delight F1 okra. Those may give some measure of his potential summer season. Summer is short, but it's about 95 - 100 degrees in heat. I had also suggested to him that he pick a south side of building as a place to put up a trellis to increase sun heat and reduce wind chilling. I use such a microclimate to grow figs and rosemary here in Arkansas, and I was able to get a last picking off my Green Taiwan Longbeans in mid October and have them in the frig to serve to our sister from Kansas a week later. My current intention is to send him about 6 seeds each of Anna's Taiwan Green, each of the 2 Indian varieties (I also expect them to be later than stated, but doubling their times = crop in zone 4), and the red one from the eBay seller in Wenatchee, Washington. WW is teetering somewhere between zone 6 and zone 5 near as I can tell from the map, so his semi-short season in a climate suited to apples may also mean a crop in Wyoming. I am forwarding my brother this link to read your suggestions and see the pix. I suspect his interest is as much in growing them to show off as it is to eat them, so he may or may not go for the bush type. I suggested that if his neighbors were growing black eyed peas, that might tell him what his chance of success was with the longbeans. MOST INTERESTING that you are finding unexpected cold tolerances in Philippine plants. My philosophy has become one of "try it", as so many times experiments work. When they don't, it's still education...kinda like the way Thomas Edison thought it useful to know a few hundred ways that wouldn't work. I think there are always surprises in hardiness. I had no expectations of survival of the Middle Eastern herb Zaatar (Origanum syriaca ), but it not only survived the humidity of last year (mildews immediately killed many similarly adapted plants from NE Colorado when I tried them here in 1990's), but has made the winter in an open pot as well... surviving to at least 17 degrees. I sent report this week to Johnny's where I bought it. I am having a lot of unexpected survivals with zone 8 plants under my big pine tree, where a thin blanket of pine needles plus overgrowth from native hardy annuals is enough blanket to fend off frost to 10 degrees or less. I weed in spring and welcome the return of Lemon verbena, pineapple sage, Mexican tarragon, Sicilian oregano, small dahlias, and the big purple oxalis. Tuberoses freeze just deep enough to kill the center stem which would have bloomed and send up instead a bunch of tiny sprouts. Winter of 2000 was zero for over 2 weeks, and I had to start over the next spring with that whole list!! Now I gotta figger out how to get rhubarb COLD ENOUGH in the winter to make it do well here... maybe grow in a big METAL pot that will chill down extremely cold when it freezes here? Laugh if you wish .... I am also interested in tolerance of extreme drought and heat. I have some candidates to go out on the road frontage this summer. I already know that catnip and sage and lemon grass will make it, and Matt's Wild Cherry, Gold Coast okra, and de Milpa tomatillos will survive but not make a significant crop. I'm looking for plants from Mexico, India, Africa, Middle East that might take such heat and drought. Any more global warming, and those areas of the world may prove to be the ancestral homes of the last food crops we can grow outdoors on this planet! Jan

@malcolm_manners: I tried to contact you through HMF private mail, but I didn't get a response. I watched the Kolkata presentation and I really liked what I saw. I wanted to ask about Fortuniana and Banksiae, do they flower at all in your climate (if so, is it during spring or autumn)? The Fortuniana I got just started to go on a blooming frenzy (it did come down from a cooler 23*C-8*C hill station to my scorching 35*C-18*C low land). It was pruned by Viru just as he gave me the specimen and it is the older canes making the buds. Was it the temperature difference? Day length change maybe? Meanwhile the Banksiae is growing taller day by day, but no flowering response (lack of older canes? won't flower in my climate maybe?). I wanted to know about this odd behaviour(s).