Cl. Peace - only gave me one flower in 6 years!

Winner's Circle - didn't even make it through it's first year before it was outta here! Ugly rose!

Sunsprite - blooms that blow in the blink of an eye and then look like used tissues.

Snowfire - although it's still here because Al likes it. Thorny, always spoted plant with blooms that refuse to open in any humidity.

JFK - another one that won't open if you even say "humidity" while standing next to it.

Ingrid Bergman - just wouldn't grow beyond a foot tall and never bloomed. Finally croaked one winter.

Intrigue - another very weak grower that rarely puts out a bloom.

Disneyland Rose - pictures on here of it in full bloom were glorious! It bloomed it's head off the first summer then promptly died over winter.

Easy Dose It - another one year wonder. It did sort of try to come back the second season but it never bloomed and didn't last through the high heat of summer.

There are others I can't think of off hand but I've learned to be very wary of first year intros being touted as "Wonderful!". I was very impressed last year with Dick Clark but it's still to be determined whether it will stand up to winter or not.

The Dahlia Rose, so weak and spindly own root, I finally yanked it out and enjoyed cutting it into pieces to send to the landfill.

Lavender Lassie, two plants in two different valleys. Both grew rampantly, both mildewed horribly and neither flowered very much. I'm convinced this variety requires a longer, harder winter chill than I've ever been able to give it.

Ballerina, grew, and grew, and grew and mildewed and mildewed and mildewed, even the flower petals. Horrible, simply horrible no matter what I did to/for it.

The Gift, very much like Ballerina, including the terminal chlorosis. Suckered and layered everywhere it touched the ground and self seeded like Bermuda Grass.

Fantan, an import from LeGrice back in the 80s. VERY difficult to make happy, requiring significantly more effort and voodoo than Grey Pearl. Grew reluctant inches each year for a few years, provided a few really interesting, very strangely colored flowers before the entire planted turned olive green, every bud breaking into simultaneous growth before the whole plant turned yellow and died. That was a budded plant. Own root plants performed even worse and lived much shorter lives.

Wandering Wind, like the little girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead, beautiful when it was beautiful, but most of the time it was horrid. Rust, terminal rust. Beautiful in flower in the early spring, but in a no spray situation, it seldom had foliage after the first flush and didn't rebloom.

Morden Ruby, very beautiful flowers and new growth in spring. Bare canes which sunburned until the plant died due to another case of terminal rust, even when nothing else contracted the fungus. Totally unsuitable for my climate.

Blue Skies, one of, if not the most expensive rose I've ever bought. Before it was officially introduced, a group in Texas sold pre production bare roots of it for $25, way back in 83-84. The single worst plant I have ever struggled with. Gall, rust/black spot/mildew spring through fall with many blind shoots. WHEN it would flower, they were misshapen and shattered within a day or two. Obviously badly virused, showing more yellow patterning than solid green. It was supposed to be THE mauve rose to beat them all. It definitely wasn't.

Plum Crazy, very interestingly colored flowers with some fragrance, but the foliage burned in sunlight. No spray, no water stress, it just couldn't stand up to the Santa Clarita Valley sun, which finally burned it badly enough for it to just do the only reasonable thing, it died.

Reine des Violettes, another heavily virused plant from Roses of Yesterday and Today. I bought it because GS Thomas said it was the bluest of all roses. Not in the Santa Clarita Valley it wasn't. Two or three flushes of mauvy to white flowers on chartreuse foliage with heavy die back. Heavy applications of peat moss and Ironite gave it deeper colors to the whole plant, but it never resembled anything ever used to illustrate the "bluest of roses". Even at its best, the flowers never lasted more than a day.

Chianti, the original deep red English rose. Perhaps in Britain, but not in the Santa Clarita Valley! It grew, in fact it grew too well. It got quite large and loaded itself with buds each spring. The weather would be spring like, then the switch would flip and every bud would explode into flower for a day before frying. It was never the deep, rich red-purple I expected. Fried, faded cerise was the best it could muster.

Charles de Mills, grew like a house-a-fire and spread like oatmeal on an active two year old. The only way to get ONE flower from it was to repeatedly pack it in ice in the San Fernando Valley. It required several years to dig it all out of the garden.

Camieux, another own root gallica, totally unsuited for my San Fernando Valley climate at the time. Not one flower from the four plants I tried for several years. They all just melted away, fortunately.

I'm sure there were many others over the years, but these most easily came to mind. Kim

Also, sometimes you get a dud of a plant and make judgments based on this, when a more healthy plant would have done fine.

Additionally, sometimes I fall in love with a particular rose and am willing to put up with bad behavior because I love it so much. For instance, Ballerina. Yes, it gets some mildew in spring. However, I overlook this as a Ballerina in full bloom is spectacular. Also, it is shade tolerant. Perhaps the mildew is my fault for putting it in a less than perfect place.

Of course, if lots of people are complaining about a particular rose, I might listen to their stories. However, I have seen so many complaints about Angel Face on the forums, I do believe them, but in my garden, it is the perfect rose. It has no disease, blooms over and over, and it is wonderful. It is in a prime spot, I must add.

Good luck choosing!