I have heard that the old hybrid tea 'Mrs. Herbert Stevens' does fantastic in hot, dry climates and it has a graceful plant habit very much like its tea rose parent, 'Niphetos'. It is supposed to be a very fragrant, shapely, pure white.

walkin -- In What part of the desert SouthWest are you located?

I DON'T live in the desert, but I can tell you that every desert garden I've visited has tried to provide some afternoon shade for roses.

As for your White Lady Banks -- yes, the banksiaes DO thrive on neglect. But when you talk about winding it up a patio column, I wonder if you realize just how big R. banksiae banksiae becomes. See it here:
{{gwi:237688}}

Yes, this one IS a hundred and fifty years old --
but in the space of 6 years or so, my own banksiaes "ate" a five-foot wooden fence.
They leaped from the fence into two 30-ft-tall ficus trees. They are now happily blooming all through the trees, and out the top of the tree canopies.

Jeri

Thanks for the speedy posts! I'm in Las Cruces, New Mexico, which is usually about ten degrees cooler than El Paso/Juarez and quite a bit cooler than Tucson (for which we are humbly thankful...), esp re nighttime temps. Within Las Cruces, I'm out on the East Mesa, near the foothills of the Organ Mountains, so that means more breeze and cooler nights than the older, more centrally located parts of town.

You've answered my question about training a rose into standard form in my front yard, though. That area gets morning shade, but the summer afternoons (our summers are late April through early November) are fierce and blazing. Doesn't sound like a rose could take it. I'll probably do a chitalpa tree instead -- and maybe train a Banksiae up it at some point! (yes, I knew how big the famous Tombstone rose is -- although I am heartened by the fact that my 3-y-o Banksiae doesn't seem to be growing all that quickly, so maybe it'll be a slightly smaller monster at my house?)

Thanks, again. Would love more commentary about roses in the desert, though. I will keep an eye out for the Mrs. Herbert Stevens --

Walkin, if you don't get the responses you need, let me know.
I'll connect you with some folks who know roses in the desert.

I know and like the Las Cruces area, which has its own sort of beauty.

Jeri

I was in Santa Fe for 20 years. Its cooler with colder winters, but the soil is about the same and the sun is just as hot--worse in some ways because of the altitude (uv). Chinas did well for me and the Romantica series instead of Austins. And most Hybrid Teas do well. The hot dry winds were a bigger problem than the soil or the sun. My front had a 6' adobe wall around it and any rose I planted there always did fine, but the ones in the back, exposed to the winds, all had crispy tops by the end of the summer. Rosa foetida (sold as Austrian Copper and Persian Yellow) and Harrison's Yellow are all favorites there, which may account for why hybrid teas do well, as they are middle eastern and in many HT's (and all the yellows) ancestory. Blaze and New Dawn also do well. I planted a Bobbie James for a friend and it ate his casita in three years, tho mine, planted in the back, didn't make it. The worst problem of the hot and dry is that fragrance doesn't carry much. You have to get up really early to smell the roses.

Regarding 'Mrs. Herbert Stevens', here is an old thread that mentions it. Scroll down to read Mike in New Orleans' post. I also have seen it mentioned in rose books from Australia and New Zealand as thriving in warm, dry climates and providing continuous rebloom.

Vintage currently has the bush form in stock and Rogue Valley offers the climbing sport.

Here is a link that might be useful: Old Thread

Hi walkin, we live in Las Vegas, about as dry as you but hotter. We have lost a lot of "heat loving" roses with our brutal hair-dryer conditions. If you have morning sun only spots you can probably grow almost anything but afternoon sun needs a special rose.

We have a four year old crepuscule that is in an exposed condition and it keeps its beautiful foilage and blooms beautifully spring and fall. Angels Camp tea gets sun till about 5:00 and blooms it's head off through the heat even though the flowers look bad for the months it's 100+ outside. Alliance Franco-Russe has lived here 3+ years and suffered through a couple of moves but does not give up and is growing like crazy this spring.

I have Mrs. Herbert Stevens and she is looking happy although I haven't had her that long. Belle Vichysoisse, the noisette in a protected spot has terrific foilage and blooms that don't seem to change much with the heat like the tea's do. Dr. Grill is dependable here - I wish he had a nicer name!

We had the yellow banksia but I got tired of defending our porch from it's constant barrage of long snakey canes all for two weeks of color and sent it to our composter(Sara the horse). Just took out a Cecile Brunner for my MIL and in her So. Cal. coastal conditions it was tremendously huge and not great in the flower department. A climber that takes a tough western exposure reflected heat spot at our house although it suffers is Josephs Coat.

Good luck with the roses and thank goodness there's so many other plants that actually love the desert.

Maria

There was a paperback book published a few years ago called Roses in a Desert Garden that you might find useful. I believe it is out of print, but you might find a copy through one of the online used book sources. I like regional rose books and buy them now and then, even if I never expect to live in that region.

R

The book mentioned by rosefolly was written by Hallie Beck and is out of print but available through local book sales.

I don't have a lot of antiques and none as large as what you're probably looking for. The HP's and chinas seem to do great in our low-desert climate. The HP's shut down bloom production during summer but the chinas are like Energizer bunnies.

Sombrueil has been a nice rose, although no longer classed as an OGR. Champney's Pink is recommended by a friend that accidently buried her mailbox in it, lol.

Cecile Brunner is quite popular here. Nearly thornless and prolific bloomer after 2-3 yrs.

Thanks again, everyone. Probably dumb terminology questions: HP? OGR (old-growth rose, maybe? is there such a thing?)

Maria, thanks especially for that super-informative post. (would love more info about all the plants that thrive in the desert... I'm slowly xeriscaping/desert landscaping our front yard, but hate the rocks-with-occasional-cactus look, and am trying to avoid it.)

Jeri, I agree completely. I'm from Chicago originally, and came here from the Bay Area, so it took a long time for me to see it. But I really like it here now.

My brother also lives in Las Cruces with a view of the Organ Mountains and I've visited there several times. Unfortunately it's lost some of its charm with all the building going on there now, but then it's that way in so many places nowadays. I would think that the noisettes, teas and Chinas would all do well there with watering, lots of mulching and shade from the afternoon sun. There are many pretty heat tolerant plants you could plant in between to have a soft and pretty landscape without using tons of water.

Ingrid

Walkin' -- OGR = "Old Garden Rose," the term encompassing roses of those types that were known before Hybrid Teas came along (officially 1867).
You may also run across the term OGRE -- meaning Old Garden Rose Enthusiast.

I wish I could be more helpful to you with types of roses, but I live right at the California coast.
But I do have friends who grow all sorts of roses in low desert situations . . .

Jeri

HP = hybrid perpetual. I grow Paul Neyron and Baronne Prevost in eastern exposure (morning sun), although the Baronne is about 7ft right now and will top 8-9ft before fall so he's in pretty much all-day sun.

Hi walkin, good for you for turning to xeriscape. I love the antique roses and wouldn't want to be without them but they are in some special areas and not the mainstay of our yard which is xeriscape - no lawn. Here's a pic of part of our low water use mostly evergreen desert front yard
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Some favorites include the sages, Salvia clevlandii, S.greggii, S. chamaedryoides S. pachyphylla: Penstemons, P.parryi, P. triflorus, P. baccharifolius and some great shrubs the wonderful cassias and leucophyllums. We have some wonderful grasses mostly evergreens from the muhlenbergia family and of course in more protected areas the antique tea roses.

Maria

Maria,
Your dry garden is gorgeous! It's what I'm striving for, but I have to get rid of all the grass we inherited when we bought the property. Penstemon and salvia are so beautiful. Have you tried nepeta with your roses? Mine doesn't take much water and blooms all Summer and Fall.
Jen

Maria -- that's the sort of garden all of us in the SouthWest ought to be planting.
At the very least, we ought to be eliminating grass (as Jen is planning to do).
And my DH is thinking about formalizing a Greywater system.
That's currently not permitted in my County, but I think over time, that really has to change.

Jeri

Jen, glad to here you're trying to convert your yard to xeriscape also. Here in Las Vegas the water district pays people two dollars a square foot to convert thier lawns to xeriscape which is a good incentive. We've battled bermuda grass for almost twenty years here but it's a winnable fight. We've dug it up, sprayed it with round up, and covered for a year to exclude light and it all works it just takes persistance. I do have catmint, it is the smaller blue blob in front of the taller clevland sage in the above pic.

Jeri I hope you have success with your greywater system, as this drought continues and our population continues to grow I think more ways of dealing with our shortage of water will be accepted.

Here's a pic of the other side of the walk with russian sage, perky sue and pinecone cactus, what's a desert yard with out cactus and agaves. The roses are up closer to the house.
{{gwi:8456}}

Maria

Very beautiful xeriscapes, Maria!

Maria, thank you for posting those gorgeous pics. (Love the pinecone cactus, what a cool shape!) That's exactly what we're hoping to do. We're going to take it section by section, beginning soon with the front third of our front yard. I think we're going to order the "Inferno Strip" garden from High Country Gardens, and then plant some other local stunners around it: the sages, lots of Texas Red yucca, and a couple of pomegranates which we'll eventually train up as trees. (I planted a 1-gallon "Wonderful" pomegranate when we moved into this house in 2003; it's now taller than I am and producing TONS of fruit, esp when we give it a bit of water.)

I've copied your plant recommendations. I'd love to hear more about how you did it. Did you rip out the entire yard at one go, or did you do it slowly?

Maria, what an absolutely magical picture of your lovely daughter with those beautiful plants. I don't know that I've ever seen a more graceful picture of a child in a garden. Thank you for sharing this with us.

Ingrid

"Roses in a Desert Garden" Hallie Beck is a seriously good book. Thank you Rosefolly! Amazon had it.

I got Hallie Beck's book too, based on Rosefolly's rec. Thanks Rosefolly! It was interesting comparing/contrasting pruning reqs for the different types, in the low desert they have a September pruning season, in addition to winter pruning, for the truly remontant types that can push new wood continuously. On the other hand, the repeat-blooming Damask Perpetuals and Hybrid Musks are only given winter pruning because of their more seasonal cane growth. This kind of shtuff always interests me :-)