Is there some reason you aren't getting that information from the garden itself? Most hardiness info on HMF is pretty much useless and not really specific to each individual cultivar, I find - and besides, zone ratings are only a general guideline under even the very best of circumstances. If you can't find out more from the Garden of Roses of Legend and Romance, then I would just mention that they are successfully grown in Wooster but the gardener may expect to prune out some dead wood in any given spring, and leave it at that. There are probably no areas in Ohio that are outright deadly to the majority of HMs and HPs. Ramblers are a mixed lot - Barbiers would be pretty risky to say the least, but hardier ones are probably fine there.

Stefan

The one warning that I think should accompany purchases is that these are NOT modern roses, should not be treated like modern roses, and should not have the heavy fertilizer regimens that modern roses require to make come-back-from-winter-damage-in-Ohio growth.
Talk about how they've survived so well and so long at that garden.

The basis of comparison has to be how they do in Wooster. So this really should be written by somebody involved in the day to day care of the roses. Somebody who can say 'we never spray that one and it's fine.' Or 'that one had trouble a few years ago when we had temperatures below -10°F.'

Having done a local plant sale for several years now, one of the big draws is that the plants have done well locally, and the people who work the sale know how the plants have been treated, and can give care and use guidelines for *HERE*. Unless Ohio is considerably more sophisticated regarding OGRs that I have any reason to believe, this sale is going to run into the same thing. People are going to want to know how hardy and disease resistant they are there. That doesn't come from HMF or books or catalogs. It comes from first hand experience with the roses.

Well, this is all good advice. I offered to help with the plant sales, but my lack of experience with these roses is a definite drawback. Kelly, the garden manager, is really the only person who knows how they grow in her garden - she has a couple of summer student assistants, but otherwise she's the whole work force! I'm going to talk with her about the roses and see if we can get some first-hand experience added to what we've prepared. She's incredibly busy, so I've been trying to do this with as little demand on her time as possible. It's their first event featuring the rose garden, and the first rose sale!

I don't think that they spray at all. It would be helpful for me, if I'm helping to sell the roses, to understand how they are cared for, that's for sure. I need to be able to talk about how to fertilize and help plants recover from winter freeze, too.

Thanks!
Anita

Just talked to Kelly - all of the roses on her list certainly do thrive in Wooster, and should do well in any surrounding areas. Ones like La France may die to the ground in the winter, but she cuts off dead canes and they come back from the roots. No winter protection, now that they've removed the modern HTs.

They do spray preventitive fungicide every two weeks, by the way.
Anita

Case in point. This past weekend, I visited the Columbus Garden of roses. I saw a Louis Phillipe that was already a couple of feet tall. HMF lists it as hardy to 7b, Columbus is 5b/6a.

Anita, any idea how many of each cultivar will be offered? I'd love to get my hands on a La France.

Eric

Looks like there will be several of La France. The list that I posted earlier had at least three of each cultivar. There will be other onesie-twosies in addition to that list.

Kelly says that her La France plants freeze to the ground in the winter but come back from the roots. All of the plants are own root, by the way.

Very few of the originally planted teas and chinas have survived in Wooster. They are colder than Columbus.

Arbor Day has a revised climate zone map that puts all of Ohio in zone 6, by the way.

Anita

Here is a link that might be useful: Revised US Climate Zones