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Roses for Portland area (zone 5)

9 years ago

I'm looking for a rose that will be fairly carefree, grow in Maine, and look like a traditional rose and have a rose scent.

Any suggestions?

Comments (7)

  • 9 years ago

    What do you mean by 'looks like a traditional rose'?

  • 9 years ago

    I am also unsure what you mean by 'looks like a traditional rose'. Doubleness? shrub size? flower size?

    One consideration in making your choice; I mostly try to avoid roses that bloom when the Japanese beetles are at their worst, so many of mine are spring only or spring and fall blooming. The beetles trash the blooms and I am unwilling the use a systemic insecticide which will kill all insects including pollinators which are drawn to the flowers.

    I exclusively buy own root roses based on experience in my gardens. I have tried several grafted and they never do as well for me. IME, even deeply buried grafts haven't always outcompeted the understock and the own root are really easy here. Mad_gallica has had different experiences but has different growing conditions (especially soil) than I do. She is much more of a rose expert.

    I grow roses that have healthy foliage in my garden and like you enjoy good scent. I don't grow hybrid teas since they tend to be fussy/disease prone and many aren't hardy enough here.

    Some ideas to check out that might fit your requirements:

    I have a double white rugosa currently, but at a previous house I had Hansa and one other I've forgotten the name of. Wonderful scent, rambunctious blooms, some overlap with the J. beetles. The ones I've grown need a good-sized space.

    I have one striped rose, Rosa gallica Versicolor AKA Rosamundi which also has lovely, wafting scent and is a spring once-bloomer.

    I really like Zephirine Drouhin which for me blooms spring and late summer, nicely bracketing the J. beetles. Lovely scent, double pink blooms, and for me a short climber since the canes often die back to the snow line.

    The Canadian Explorer roses are worth checking out, though mine (John Davis) has bloom that at least partly coincides with the Japanese beetles, and the scent isn't strong enough to waft well, though nice when sniffed from up close.

    I have a Red Eden rose which has a very double, classic old rose look and nice scent. In my garden it gets killed back to the snow line most winters, so it is a shrub that doesn't start blooming until after the Japanese beetles are done and then blooms constantly throughout the late summer and fall. Rated as zone 6 in at least one spot I looked, but didn't have any problems with -23 and a week of the highest temperatures being single digits at my house winter before last or almost no snow cover last winter.

    I also grow an old rose (came with the house which dates from 1850, though I don't know how long the rose has been here) which has 4' canes, very double light pink flowers and lightly rose-scented foliage as well as strongly wafting blooms. It blooms in early summer and is fairly common at old houses around here, so someone in your area may have it if you keep your eyes open. It's easy to start from cuttings.

    A bit up the coast from you is Suzy Verrier, though from her website it is unclear if she will be selling roses this season. Hers is a back yard nursery quite literally.

    Sigrid thanked NHBabs z4b-5a NH
  • 9 years ago

    By looks like a traditional rose, I mean something that's double, but not too double, not a single like many of the beach roses.

    I hadn't thought about Japanese Beetles. I think I might have a lot of them. My garden was neglected for some time, so the only things there are thugs that can withstand neglect and whatever insects there are. I'm not a big fan of insecticides, either.

  • 9 years ago

    If you aren't a fan of insecticides, then my suggestion would be to look for once-bloomers that have spring bloom and so will be done before the worst of the beetles and/or Zephirine Drouhin.

  • 9 years ago

    I think it's Zephyrine Drouhin, since this is to commemorate my mother, whose first name was Rose and whose birthday was mid-June. Thank you.

    How do I get rid of the beetles naturally? When I lived in Russia, the moles kept things like that down.

  • 9 years ago

    There is milky spore disease that may or may not overwinter for you but attacks the grubs; we are sort of on the border. There are also some beneficial nemetodes (a microinvertebrate) that will attack the grubs, but I am fairly sure need to be applied every year. If you have a really large yard, you can try the trap bags with a pheromone attractant, but the bag needs to be a good distance from the garden (several hundred feet is what I aim for.) These may decrease your population over time, especially if you have near neighbors you can convince to join you in applying them.

    Mostly, I go out with a bucket of soapy water early morning before they've warmed up and sometimes in the evening and knock them into the water to drown. It does cut down on the population over time as well since they aren't surviving to reproduce.