I have four Julia Child in my gardens here in South Carolina. I get blackspot just about every year if I don't spray regularly with a fungicide.
I love the rose though, so I just spray!

I look at the canes and base/bud union on a potted rose and totally ignore the foliage. Modern nurseries know how to pump even a poor rose into lush foliage and bloom (it's temporary). So I see how the canes look (scratched? dinged? scraped? spotted with disease?) and how the bud union looks, or the base on an own root. I think that tells more about the potential for long term success.

mstitch- Gorgeous! I love how floriforous she can be. I hope mine look that happy in a few years. I have a new 'Golden Celebration' as well (can't buy any more yellows) and think I might have to spray that one so am planning to pick up some of the Bayer Tebuconazole spray this afternoon anyway. 'GC' doesn't actually have any disease problems right now so I'll spray the Julias first.

hoovb- This is just what I was asking-- how to pick the right plant. I went out and took a good look at the bud unions and canes and they seem to be in good shape but I'm just lucky b/c I didn't look very carefully at the nursery.

Hoovb is right on in picking any nursery plant from the bottom up, particularly woody plants like roses. I also look to see how much the nursery has had to prune out dead canes before it gets to me, since that is sometimes a sign of canker history that I can't see yet. I check the canes carefully for canker, but don't worry about the blackspot since the air circulation and humidity and root development and everything is different once it gets planted out in your yard. I also deliberately pick plants that aren't heavily in bloom if possible, as long as I have enough to confirm it's the right rose, since I want them to bloom because they're ready to do so in my yard, not because they're pumped up "on steroids".

Just BTW, you may have been unconsciously considering these factors already in wanting a bushy, not too leggy plant. In general, plants with healthy canes and bud unions will bush out better and maintain those canes longer than otherwise. The leggy ones may have been pushed too hard by the fertilizers and other treatments they're pumped full of at the nursery and not survive as well in a real garden. So you had good rose instincts to start with!

Cynthia

Not necessarily... a leggier plant could also be leggy because the plants were crowded much too closely, forcing the growth to push up and not out. That can usually be "corrected" by pruning, but why HAVE to, if you don't have to? Agreed, select plants from the bottom up. The top is always going to change. The bottom should start off as good as possible so you don't have to take corrective action later to encourage them to improve, losing a season or more in the process. Kim

Spray GC too. Fungicide is a prevention, not a cure.

You must spray BEFORE disease becomes apparent for best results. And reminder to follow a wise safety regimen when spraying. Gloves, long sleeves, respirator, goggles, etc.

mzstitch, awesome Julias!

The nursery was telling you the truth and kudos to them! Sometimes the conditions in the nursery are such that it promotes diseases. The plants are crowded together for sale and it's usually very warm and humid. Julia Child has been very disease resistant for me so they should out grow it. It's also very winter hardy with out protect for me.

I like to choose plants that have a good branching structure when I purchase. I look for at least 3 good strong canes at the base. From there they should branch out more as you go up the canes to the top. But as Kim noted, good pruning can make that happen too.

I think you'll love Julia! Mine is 3 years old and I took this photo this morning.

Roses from nurseries in places where BS is prevalent will all end up with BS because they don't spray. By the time you see it it will be too late but you can stop it in its' tracks by spraying. Buy the best bud union with the most and strongest looking canes and assume there is BS and begin spraying immediately.

Even where and when BS isn't an issue, it often will be in a nursery setting. No matter how good the cultural practices are, the plants are going to be stressed, impairing their immune systems. Crowding together in nursery rows fosters the perfect conditions for stressed plants to fall victim to the issues. Only in the absolute best of conditions can diseases be reduced without chemical intervention and those are rare, indeed. In Visalia, at Sequoia Nursery, black spot was seldom an issue anywhere in the nursery, except for the sales area where the plants were immature, stressed in too-small pots and crowded together either in green houses or out under shade cloth, all of which tremendously raising the humidity. Even when sprayed regularly, enclosing the plants inside boxes which raised the humidity even more, created the perfect Petri dishes for the fungi to germinate and proliferate.

If the diseases are that great an issue where you are, you may have to resort to spraying. Fortunately, where I am, they aren't. I have often been able to reduce, even eliminate the problems by defoliating new plants I bring into the garden and placing them in filtered light until they push new foliage. Not a 'cure all' but it has definitely worked quite well for many years and without anything smelly, expensive, potentially dangerous and toxic nor requiring the effort of actually DOING the spraying. Kim