I think in your climate they would get bigger than you describe (the one I have is easily 3 ft by 3 ft), and you would spend a lot of time constantly pruning them. If 1 1/2 feet tall would be "ideal", I would try to find a rose that does that naturally. If you go to Help Me Find/roses, you can type in the name of any rose and see all sorts of pictures of it. Look at 'Little White Pet', and other polyanthas - some of them stay quite small and compact. Look at Margo Koster and her relatives (that family has thrown out an amazing number of color sports).

Jackie

I have to agree with Jacqueline. I have both coral and red in pots that I bought in two gallon pots from a local nursery. Both are already 1.5' tall and 3' wide easily. I'm sure they will continue to get bigger in my climate. I had planned to put them in the front of a flower bed with a HT behind them but since my beds are only 4' deep I've decided that just won't work. I'm glad I bought them and put them in pots to see their growth pattern before putting them in the beds as a border. I would constantly pruning them to keep them off the walkway.

I've gotten probably 20 of various colors over the last 3 years, and they have done one of two things. They've either gotten far bigger than what you have in mind, or they just died for some unknown reason I've yet to figure out. Pretty little things but check out other options.