Hi everyone,

I am new to growing roses. I thought I would start with a trellis right on my backyard fence and train a climbing rose along its length. The fence is 20'x6' and is currently taken over by a passion fruit vine which I plan to relocate to a smaller section. The space is pictured below (after aggressive pruning of the passion vine in March). It gets full sun for half of the day and in the evenings it does get the heat but not direct sun.

My preferences in the order of priority are

1) Disease resistant (We are in a dry climate but mildew is still an issue. It'll be unsightly to look at a large space of mildew affected plant)

2) Repeat bloomer

3) Fragrant (hard to say what I like specifically as I am not sure I understand the descriptions Myrrh, tea, green apple, etc)

4) Colors - Peach/Apricot or shades of pink. Yellow sounds great too. Open to other colors as well.

5) Thornless would be nice but not too important

I scoured through this forum during the break and chose the following candidates. Really great source of info!!

1) Mel's Heritage (I live 10 mins away from the SJ Heritage rose garden. Although, this exact space is not as full sun as MH's spot in the rose garden) - so many fabulous pics by Lisa and Jeri

2) Colette climbing rose

3) Pearly Gates

4) Strawberry Hill - After reading Helen's post on this one in a similar climate

5) Gertrude Jekyll

I am curious to know your thoughts on these and others. I can choose two if they are smaller climbers but I am assuming one vigorous one would be easier to prune and manage (correct me if I am wrong on that).

Thanks!

-Udhay

Adding other varieties based on comments below

6) Westerland

7) Renae