climbers for colder zones

Reply to: Sounds like it could be either multi flora or own root.

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Reply to: HI Moses I grow or have grown all of these in my zone 5 yard, and in my experience the following haven't been hardy for me in a typical zone 5 spot: South Africa, Summer Sun, and Wedding Bells. The latter is gorgeous enough I'm trying it in a protected zone 6 spot, but it's not among the hardier Kordes roses. Eliza, Fiji and Ruby Ice have all survived at least one winter in a typical zone 5 spot but they don't recover well from being pruned to the ground and at least some of them don't look like they've come back fully a second or third year. Sunny Sky is plenty hardy but rarely blooms. Larissa isn't in a great spot so I can't say it's not robust, but mine rarely gets above about a foot (to be fair it's shaded by some other perennials, but still - a foot?) On the flip side, I love love love Garden Delight - a top 20 and perhaps top 10 of the roses I grow. Tip hardy, blooms all summer, at least 4' tall, covered in blooms of every "hot" color in the rainbow, and striking. Poseidon is another definite keeper and among the best of the lavender roses. Also mostly tip hardy at 4-5' even in a lousy spot and the blooms stay lavender without pinking out at all. Caramella I quite like and it's similarly cane hardy though much floppier canes than the other two, also 4-5' if it would stand upright. I have to support its canes with fencing around the bush. It can have lovely apricot-buff color in cooler weather but can be a basic cream color in truly hot weather. Not as robust a rebloomer but a keeper for me. Bliss is surprisingly also a tall rose for me even though it says only 3' or so in my records. Mine is a blush pink and around 4' tall, and it blooms off and on in the summer in part sun. I think it'll bloom more with another year of age behind it and it's totally clean as Kordes roses tend to be. Roxy has been more of a 2.5-3' rose but quite impressive a rebloom though the individual flowers are much smaller and less of a statement individually. Orchid Romance has only been in a year or two so I can't really tell about rebloom yet, but the winter survival was pretty good and color nice though more pink than Poseidon. Cinderella is fine but not all that impressive, and at 7 or so years old I think it's as good as it gets. Reasonable sun and conditions, and it has surviving cane most years and regrows quickly from the base, but the rebloom isn't great. The blush pink is so pale it doesn't stand out for me much in the garden and the blooms don't have enough form to be notable otherwise. It's probably the tallest of these you list for me however and the only one likely to climb. All of these are BS resistant for me though in PA you may get different strains than I do around here. My summary of recommendations would be Garden Delight, Poseidon, Caramella, and Bliss for taller roses, and Roxy for smaller ones. I was very impressed with Ruby Ice for several years before it started to grow backward for me, so it'd be another to include for your consideration, as would Fiji and probably Orchid Romance. Cynthia

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Reply to: Have you been to my ebook? Rose Rosette ebook First page : the emphasis should be on aberrant, excessive or unexpected. Those three adjectives I came up with fifteen years ago when I watched RRD come into my part of the world and was trying to help other people. At that time the word from ag departments was that RRD seldom infected cultivated roses. Balderdash. I managed to keep RRD to a minimum in my roses by catching appearances of earliest symptoms....Even overgrown stipules, multiple excessive growth sepals, leaves that were not symmetric and whose margins weren't 'normal', one side of a cane that grew faster than the other sides.... The book is long and the FAQs will answer some of your questions. I have not updated with the recent discovery that the disease is a virus in the emara group of viruses....most of the papers about it are searchable. with Google Scholar.

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