A bullet proof constantly blooming rose for a beginner is Bonica. Also if I were in zone 4, I would grow rogusas, I grow several in zone 8 cause they are carefree, hardy and sweet smelling- including Therese Bugnet which is lovely and I reccomend Hansa is one of my favorites, Snow Pavement is pretty bullet proof also. I also grow Rose de Rescht and it is great. I have grown Constance spry and it was gorgeous, a once bloomer but worth it. I don't grow any of the others you have chosen.

Here is a link that might be useful: bonica at hmf

I think that you will need to winter protect Duchesse De Brabant. Not sure whether Z4 is too cold for DDB.

What are you trying to accomplish here? It is a rather, um eclectic mix of roses. The only one I'd recommend without a lot of caveats is Therese Bugnet.

Given your zone and that you evidently have nothing against old roses, I would recommend that you also post your question over in the antique rose forum. I live in a mild climate myself and so don't know about the hardiness of your choices, but I do know that zone 4 is where you have to think hard about hardiness. I'm also thinking about the old rose forum for you for this reason: there's a woman, Celestial--I don't know if she's been around lately--who has a wonderful zone 4 garden with a lot of old roses. And with your relatively short growing season, repeat bloom may not be particularly valuable to you, and you might get a lot of bang for your buck from once-bloomers that are reliably hardy where you live.
Having said all this, I'll quietly retire and leave the floor to people who have actual experience growing roses in cold zones.
Melissa

Welcome to rose growing.

I grow roses in cold zones too. As for the coldness, I think you can grow most of your choices (except for Teas and some bourbons- which you might consider annuals there) . but you will need to plant the graft underground and maybe do some extra winter protection.
There are 2 paths people take (some people take both, one first, then the other.....) when growing roses in Zone 4.
Path 1 being that you grow exactly what you like (Hybrid Teas, Bourbons..or whatever) and deal with the fact you may lose some to zagging weather. Some people grow their favorite roses as an annual just because they like it so much. ( In hot zones people lose their roses too- but they crap out from disease or other problems . Some roses come and go.)
Path two, is only growing roses that you could ignore for 5 years and it'd probably be fine. (Generally- in zone 4 this will be the rugosas, many Albas, and Gallicas--- mostly the once bloomers). Or the Scott's roses. These path 2 roses are what you will have to grow if you want a bigger bush.

But even the easy roses can have bad habits like suckering all over hecks half acre or being a balled mess in their one big bloom, because it's your rainy season still. So, it's a trade off.

But- since you are asking about a no spray garden --- that really has more to do with your local climate-- the humidity etc.. Here- in the cold Rocky Mountains most of us really don't have to worry about disease. It's too arid in the summer. But out on the left coast, it's probably different.

Maybe find an Organic garden or even ask your local rose society what kind of disease pressure you have over there. You might be able to grow anything and never spray either .... or you might want to stick to the earthkind list etc.

Best of luck on your new hobby.

This post was edited by lola-lemon on Tue, Mar 26, 13 at 4:12

Hi, I live in upstate NY as well. I grow a large number of Austins, they are wonderful roses.

In my no-spray garden setting the roses get blackspot and drop their leaves; they do well, however.

I grow Clotilde Soupert as a bedding rose. It can ball in June, but in late summer the blooms are better. It's a beautiful rose and a good bloomer, very fragrant.

I grow Duchesse de Brabant, it's my one Tea Rose. I grow it as a bedding rose.

If you click on My Page it brings up my list of roses.

A few of my Austins have a musky scent, but most are Old Rose/ Damask type. Constance Spry has a myrrh scent which is not to everyone's taste.

Thank you so very much everyone, i really appreciate your thoughts. As to what i am trying to accomplish, well, that would be starting a rose garden, knowing nothing about roses except that i love them! Thanks again!

Wow Krista! You grow hybrid musks in zone 4 too! I've been wanting to try Cornelia for years and I just ordered buff beauty against all the local rose growers advice because their musks died.
Sometimes I think zone 4 is easier on roses than my zone 5/6 winters.

Your garden is an inspiration.

Lola, I'm more like zone 5a now... I've found Hybrid Musks to be hardy. I think growing roses organically and tending the soil makes roses strong garden plants.

I've grown Morey's Pink and it really is not a very exciting rose. I think you can find prettier roses that will do well in your area. There are some beautiful rugosas like Schneezwerg and many others that you might want to try. Therese Bugnet is a very pretty rose. I would hesitate about Duchesse de Brabant. The Dark Lady did spectacularly well for me, although in a much different climate zone. The main thing is to get started and find out for yourself how the roses do.

Disease pressure where I am (Hudson Valley) is considerably higher than where Krista is further west. Most Austins require spray here or they decline. Lilian Austin does reasonably well no-spray, and I've heard good reports of the Crocus Rose. Make sure you get them with an appropriate rootstock from a reputable source. You don't want them own-root.

Belinda's Dream wants heat. As in days over 100 that you can't count on your fingers.

I'd recommend both the Apothecary Rose and its striped sport Rosa Mundi as good performers that may be findable. A very dependable repeat bloomer is Jacques Cartier. I'd take any of those over Rose de Wretched.

Don't discount the Explorers, and definitely don't write off once bloomers. Rugosas can be tricky, depending on your soil. If things like azaleas and blueberries thrive, so will rugosas.

A lot of this is going to depend on your personal approach to gardening. If you are the type to buy a fair number of something and don't mind losing most of them to 'experience', there is nothing wrong with diving in and seeing how it goes. If you are the type to be conservative with your plants, and get upset when anything dies, roses can be quite tricky. A lot of the books are flat out wrong, and reliable local information can be difficult to track down.

Good luck.

Blackspot pressure is very high in my area. However, I've found in my garden setting that organic fertilizers build the soil to create an environment where the roses do well, even though they get blackspot.

Not here. A steady diet of various Tones, manure and alfalfa still produces roses that defoliate and dwindle.

Shrubs should include some of the hardier Buck roses especially Quietness.
There are many hardy Austins but Fair Bianca is not one of them. Try Gertrude Jekyll, Charlotte, Crown Princess Margareta, Evelyn, Harlow Carr, Jude the Obscure, Mary Rose, and Sharifa Asma.The Dark Lady may have blackspot issues.
Old Garden Roses (OGRs): Jacques Cartier is good and I would also add Reine des Violettes (thornless).
Romanticas are not very hardy except maybe Bolero.
Some hardier Delbards and Generosas may be OK.
Marie Pavie is a good polyantha.
I get mine own root from Roses Unlimited.
For more rose info, go to helpmefind.com/rose

Blackspot also an issue here. I only have Constance Spry from your list. I consider her a 'must have.' Stays very disease free for me. Queen of Sweden is another great Austin that is hardy and BS free. Princess Alexandra is just slightly less BS free, but still great.

Here is a really great resource for you. The Peggy Rockefeller rose garden in NY recently went no spray. They started doing trials and replaced mote than 600 rose bushes and now grow only disease resistant varueties that are hardy in your zone. They now make a top 100 performers list each year that can be found here: http://www.nybg.org/gardens/rose-garden/performers-2010.php

They rank them by performance (disease resistance/bloom production/hardiness) but the 100 top are listed from over 1300 roses and they did not include any one time bloomers in the list. It's by far the best and most recent trial for no spray cold climate roses. They are now testing their best performers to see if they can designate them as "earth kind" (a category for no spray, organically fertilized only roses that give outstanding performance. Belinda's dream, Cecile Bruner and duchess de Brabant all make the cut currently). And they have announced that Kordes roses have almost all been their top performers. Particularly the fairy tale series. So look into those.
Quietness is a great one too. It's a dr griffin buck rose of which there are many other good ones too. All bread to be cold hardy and extremely disease resistant.
I live in S. florida so I don't know much about winter hardiness but I know a lot about black spot resistant roses and some of my best performers are kordes, buck roses and the NEWER Austin's. David Austin has payed a lot of attention to disease resistance in the past 10 years or so, and the new ones are very good performers.

Here is a link that might be useful: Top 100 list from NYBG

mad_gallica is the grower closest to the OP, and mad_gallica is a nationally distinguished rosarian. So if I were the OP, I would listen first to mad_gallica.

Madteaparty33, I received your email that you sent me in late April, and sent a reply through Garden Web... I'm not sure if Garden Web is the most reliable way to send and receive mail.

If you prefer, you can email me directly through my email address on my Member Page.

I refer you to two of Prof. Roush's posts. In both, he loads his gun and slingshot with mud and fires and slings away. They are two of my favorites of all of his blog posts. I recommend reading them and viewing the associated photos carefully to determine whether the mud is actually gold leaf for Zone 4.

The first is a post about 'High Voltage.' Link below:

Here is a link that might be useful: Unelectrifying

The second is a post about 'Therese Bugnet.'

Here is a link that might be useful: Trailer Trash Therese

To the OP if you're still reading - I would pay attention to Mad Gallica. NYS it hilly and once you leave NYC, the altitude and temps are not always rose-friendly.

Down in NYC, most of those roses aren't going to be no-spray. I can grow teas and I'm about a mile from the Brooklyn Botanical Garden and they can't,. We're on the perimeter of the zone for those and I happen to have a protected area, whereas in the BBG, they don't, so the winters are much harsher for them.

I'd say forget teas altogether.

I pull out anything I have to spray - I'm not going to spend weekends suiting up and spraying toxins just so I can look at some roses.

What grows no-spray for me is La Marne, a great polyantha that should do well for you too because it blooms into December, Knockout, Prairie Sunrise and Serendipity by Buck, Isabella Sprunt which will die in your region, Climbing James Galway - which gets HUGE, Lyda Rose, Darwin's Enigma, Pink Above All, and maybe Pearle d'Or, which might survive in your area.

Some of them actually do get some blackspot, but they don't defoliate. Most of the other roses I grow are going to die in your climate. In Michigan I also grew Prairie Harvest, Belinda's Dream, William Baffin, and Rose de Rescht and those seemed to do OK except that the first 2 would die down to the ground every year. They did again but I was out there last week and they've sprung right back up. I prune them down anyhow, so the fact that they get significant dieback isn't an issue.

All of the roses are own-root though, so I don't know about grafts as I've only grown 2 roses in my life that were grafted.

Good luck. Just remember, there are thousands of roses and one way to cut down on your choices is to limit yourself to roses that will thrive in your area.