Try 'Zepherine Drouhin' -- lovely nearly thorn-less, deep pink and fragrant! Climber to 12 feet. I lost mine here (Central Massachusetts - zone 6) due to my incompetence, but I am going to try it again next year.

Where in New England?

@Vaporvac in the Boston metro area..

@Roxanna7 do you know of a vendor selling them bare root?

Climbers z5

Cold Hardy roses

Here is a search forCold Hardy Climbers.

You might also check with Northland Rosarium and High Country Roses. The latter has a great gift certificate sale at the moment. I would suggest Felix LeClerc or Victorian Memory, both of which are available through HighCountryRoses.com. Both vendors sell bareroot. There are other wonderful Canadian climbers in the above links.

I recommend Climbing Pink Don Juan, very fragrant, available at Chamblee's Nursery, Winona, TX. It repeats bloom better than any other climber I have either grown myself, or observed growing in other's gardens, including public gardens.

Moses

Moses, I'm still hoping to get E.B. LeGrice from RVR someday. Would it be an appropriate choice? I believe it was you who had recommended it to me many moons ago. ;- )

It is in stock at RVRs Vapor.

Vaporvarc,

E.B. LeGrice is quite a big climber. It can easily get 14' across on a 4' fence with no difficulty. The flower production is abundant and continual. Few climbers match it in this regard. The individual blooms are about 2.5-3" across, filling the canes on short, 3-4" laterals in 3-4 bloomed clusters, and have no fragrance to speak of that I can remember. They do not nod. Stamens show when fully open.

In the public garden where I observed its progress for about 5 years, it drew you in. No,other climber there did that. I haven't seen it 10 years, but it made such an impression on me, I can still see it in my mind's eye. It was sprayed there very regularly, but it seemed to be so vigorous, I wonder how much it really needed spraying.

An old Franciscan monk recommended that the in charge folks at the garden plant it, and they very wisely did.

In the same garden, Fourth of July (unimpressive), Darlow's Enigma (ditto), Jeanne LaJoie (great in spring, thereafter a dud), New Dawn (same as JLJ), Aloha, and all the other climbers could not compare to E.B. LeGrice. Above all it exuded vigor, willingness to bloom, and poise.

Now, Climbing Pink Don Juan is a winner in EBLG's league, but is nowhere as large a climber. CPDJ's blooms are 4-4.25", pretty petal packed, very fragrant, 2-3 blooms together or singles, and held on about 8" laterals.

They both bloom more continually than any other climber I know of, even my Lady Ashe, no slouch as a repeater by a long shot, but Lady Ashe is a true climbing hybrid tea, making single summer blooms on up to 30" laterals, straight upward. In spring the first-round is 3-4 blooms on 14" laterals, then mostly long stemmed singles until late fall.

Moses

Thank you again for your sweet exposition on E.B. LeGrice. It sound like a wonderful rose named after a wonderful man. Peter Bealses description of him practically brought me tears so I've wanted this rose to honor the man. I will get it as soon as I am able to start work on the arbor. I need some tall climbers there! P.S. Do you recall if it's very thorny?

A good rose will eventually get recognized, which I hope E.B. LeGrice eventually will.

Sorry, I don't remember, but I bet it is thorny.

Be aware that unless you work hard at it (as Moses commented, a lot of spraying or other insect management) everblooming roses will be decimated by Japanese beetles in most of New England during much of July and August (as well as by Asiatic beetles and rose chafers in some places). And if you are spraying for Japanese beetles, unless you are very careful about the pesticides you use and when you use them, you will also be killing pollinators such as bees. So Milky Spore disease is specific to Japanese beetles, but has specific time it is applied to be effective, and my area is too cold for it to survive the winters. Something like many Bayer insecticides are broad spectrum and will kill most insects who visit the plant, which seems a bit unfair to me; if I grow flowers, I don’t want to be killing the pollinators who come to visit.

I deliberately choose roses that bloom little in the summer so that I don’t have to spray. I love Zepherine Drouhin specifically because in my garden she takes a break in summer after a heavy spring bloom, so the J beetles don’t bother the plant. There is usually a light fall bloom as well. Beautiful pink, scented flowers, and though it is supposed to not be hardy here, it has survived -23F in my garden, though branches often die back to the snow line during especially cold winters. Even in those years, it reaches over my head to 6’-8’.

I never spray and have roses that bloom in summer. Not a lot of them, but at least three or four roses that bloom right through the summer for the most part. Everblooming is one of my criteria for selection. I have been experimenting on which roses will allow me to have a 'no spray' garden and I've tried quite a few that didn't make the grade. But beetles don't seem to be a huge problem for me so far. I do pull out any grubs I find in the soil as I am digging around in the garden, and I handpick them off roses. I don't get a lot of beetles, but they do love roses and if they are in the area, that is where I will usually find them. Makes it easy to just flick them into a cup of soapy water.

But I have wondered if the reason I don't get a lot of beetles is because there are really not many gardeners in my neighborhood and I rarely see a rose.

Seemed to vary by the year in MI. And for some reasons would swarm on top is spruce trees in the neighborhoods. But I am going to go for Don Juan (just love the fragrance) and try Zephrine for the shadier sections. I always found it easier/ more successful to use bare root (own root) as opposed to planting a grown plant.