loribee - roses will grow like crazy in your climate & lovely yard! I would guess everything will grow larger than the advertised size, so keep that in mind.

Re a tall but relatively narrow rose, "The Lark Ascending" by David Austin Roses is a really nice one - it's thorny, but lovely (pale apricot yellow with a bit of a water lily like look to the blooms).

Re how long the blooms last in the heat, is scent important to you? A lot of the "tougher" roses don't have much scent.

I'm definitely a rose novice, so would also be interested in other people's thoughts!!!

Thank you for the response! I have seen the David Austin roses recommended for this area. I will look at that one! As for fragrance, I think I'm in luck. I'm actually very sensitive to strong fragrances, so I have been ruling out any roses that advertise being highly fragrant.

I've spent a good portion of the evening doing more research. In my area, "4th of July" seems to come highly recommended as a potential climber for my arbor. Though I'm still trying to decide if that's the look I'm going for. As for candidates for my two raised beds, I'm kind of insane for the color and characteristic of "Chicago Peace". Feedback on that rose is welcome, as well as ideas on what might be a nice color to compliment it.

I'm now also scheming on another area of my yard where I have white Iceberg roses growing very well (recommended on these forums, thank you!). I also have cala lillies and a potato vine. I.e., too much white. I've got space to fill in some color, and am looking for hearty slightly shade-tolerant shrubs. They'll go in the ground and may need to be tough enough to compete with roots from other plants. From what I've read, I should probably be looking at "species roses" for that area, though I'm open to any suggestions and ideas.

Thank you again for thoughts!

I agree that roses will grow amazingly well for you in Santa Rosa, and your garden is gorgeous, too. I also love the roses with the colors you describe, I call them the sunset colored roses. I like them with both a balance of pink and orange, a fair amount of yellow and some copper. I have a few favorites:

Chicago Peace , which you have mentioned:

Granada

Love & Peace

Since you seem to be like me and like an eyeful of color, how about:

Neil Diamond

Brigadoon

Gemini

For a solid red, there is no better cutting rose than Veterans Honor (huge,perfect, long stems, lasts 2x longer than other roses)

To lighten things up, check out Moonstone...white with just a touch of pink, size and form very compatible with the Peace roses. Seems to be extraordinarily large,long lasting and high quality, mine is new so I don’t have a good pic yet.

St Patrick is another great one for cut flowers. A novel green tinted yellow with pink centers, extremely long lasting , big blooms on a robust plant.

What about Disneyland? I don't know how it is for disease resistance in your particular microclimate, but I think it does well in many areas of California. For what it's worth, I think there's a climbing version of peace.

OMGoodness, BenT those are gorgeous, and I love your term for them, sunset. They really do stop you in your tracks the way a beautiful sunset would. Thanks for the suggestions. That Love & Peace is a stunner, and I haven't run across it in my searches yet.

And vaporvac, thanks for the suggestions. I am definitely looking those up!

Since scent isn't a requirement for you, some of the Kordes roses might work well - they tend to have healthy foliage & longer lasting blooms, but not much scent. I don't personally grow it, but Kordes "Fiji" is a deep pink that might fit your color scheme - I know some people here like it.

For breaking up the area with too much white, I think either pink or red roses would be nice, especially with some purple companion plants thrown in (e.g., lavender, salvia, or nepeta).

Great suggestions, thank you!

That might be the one for me!