I grew New Zealand and New Day. I never had much fragrance from either one but New Zealand made the most blooms and was a trouble free and tall, narrow plant. But....I have two New Day because I like the color so very much. It ties as my favorite yellow along with Eternal Flame. New Day is not a huge rose but has a nice shape to the plant. Also the roses are a beautiful soft color that I think is elegant. I planted them next to Tiffany and have been pleased with how they look together.

Thanks, Kitty. How is the disease resistance on New Day? As good as New Zealand?

I had 'New Day'. It was one of the very first roses I ever bought. I had to leave it at the old house. It had a beautiful pure yellow color and good stems, very straight. My climate is too different to say, but here it had much better foliage than 'New Zealand'. Did not however have 'New Zealand's superb fragrance. 'New Zealand' does not like heat. Of course cold hardiness I have no clue.

I love New Zealand, intensely and deliciously fragrant to my nose, does well with winter.

It gets blackspot and drops its leaves in my no-spray garden setting; however, it's a good bloomer.

The bloom color reminds me of peaches, seems to work with both modern and antique roses in a color scheme.

New Zealand was more disease resistant for me than New Day was. Eternal Flame is very disease resistant here but gets to be a mighty tall plant. That might be a plus in a cold area. They look similar in the vase side by side but Eternal Flame has good fragrance. If I was choosing own root plants, I might choose Eternal Flame over New Day because the color is so close. New Day has maybe a little more paleness at the edges and the plants are smaller in size. My New Days are old grafted plants and I don't know how an own root would be.

Thank you all! However, I'm not sure this is helping, lol! You make New Day's bloom sound so lovely but New Zealand sounds like it has a delicious fragrance. I think I am leaning toward the New Zealand because it sounds like it blooms more too. I don't think heat will be as much of a problem here.

These are all grafted, potted, nursery roses. I'm going to a rose society meeting at the nursery next weekend and I have a gift certificate for one rose. They emailed their 2013 rose list out to us and we can put them on hold for pick up in May. I'm trying to decide which one before I get there, lol. Eternal Flame looks pretty but they don't offer it.

Hmmm...apparently not many people have New Year? I wonder if that means it's really bad?

Coming late to this discussion, but I will just say that out of the 50 or so roses I have grown over the last 35 years, New Zealand is my absolute favorite! Nothing can touch its incredible fragrance, it is amazingly healthy in my North of San Francisco garden--beautiful, shiny leaves, very floriforous, etc. Disease-free. Go for it!

I agree about 'New Day' having an exceptional soft yellow color. Also the form is elegantly sculpted. Mine was fully susceptible to black spot and mildew. 'Elina' is the only older HT I know of that has substantial blackspot resistance.

I'm growing all three though in a different zone than you Seil. New Day is an old favorite. Mine is 17 years old and grown very tall. I've had New Year a long time too. I like it but of the three it is the least exciting. I love the fragrance of New Zealand. It's always had some bothersome cane dieback. I would say the disease resistence is about the same for these roses, not very good, but not so bad to get rid of them. For me New Day has been the strongest grower and my favorite of the group.

I am a newbie so not much help, but I did grow New Day last year and LOVED it. It looks like it made it through the winter with some die back but I did not winter protect at all (with last year being my first year I just kind of wanted to see what would happen and what would survive, I do plan to winter protect this year)

{{gwi:258068}}

Here are two New Day blooms in a bouquet with Double Delight, Headliner, and a few other soft pinks (probably Bewitched) and Lady X.

{{gwi:258069}}

If New Day had not made it through the winter I would definitely be replacing it because of the few yellows I planted last year this one was the prettiest with beautifully shaped blooms.

I am no help with New Zealand, just looked it up on hmf because of all of the praise in this post, it does look like a nice soft baby pink and I would love to add it at some point. You'll have to keep us posted how it turns out if you decide on that one.

New Year has always looked pretty to me on hmf, I bought one last year but it was mislabeled. I just bought one this year so hopefully I can give it a go. Never thought I would enjoy those oranges as much as I did last year since I'm a soft colors fan, but I really wanted to give New Year a go and couldn't pass it up when I saw it last week in one of those bagged pots. We'll see.

Thanks for your suggestion to not dig up stuff so early in that other post about SPing. I had no idea that some could show life as last as June, and that if it did come back I could replant deeper. I thought it was done when that bud union went through one of our winters above ground! Fortunately I only pulled out a few that showed no life but the rest I'm iffy on I will leave in and let spring work its magic.

My boss has New Year as part of her driveway row (long driveway) The plant gets to 4 foot and very round and shrubby looking, hers are about 10-12 years old. I love them, but they do go to a pale color fairly quickly.

Thank you all so much! Lots of good info here. I'm finding it very hard to decide between New Day and New Zealand...so I may just break down and get them both! I really shouldn't but what the heck, what's one more...lol.

Nummy, glad to hear you got my advice. I think I remember you saying you're on the west side of the state? I'm on the far east side and a full zone warmer than you and mine haven't even begun to leaf out yet so I won't make any decisions on live or dead yet. Also many of the ones Mom planted have grafts above ground because she never sunk any of hers. They've been coming through our winters for decades.

I grow all three and since we're in similar zones, I can vouch that they've all survived my zone 5 yard OK. Not what I'd call cane hardy, and I had to prune New Year nearly to the ground, but that may be because it started as a smaller band. Of the three, I'd give New Zealand the edge because it blooms more and the fragrance is nice. New Day definitely has the edge over New Year, which I agree is fine but not exciting. Overall these are good choices for zone 6, and we can definitely encourage you to buy both, since more roses are always a welcome thing!

Cynthia

Tell us what you got when you finally come home with one.

New Zealand has a really lovely fragrance, and a subtle, soft color. I have two of them: one is putting out LARGE amounts of lovely, healthy new growth, while the other is slower, but still healthy-looking. I bought them as beat-up picked-over nursery leftovers at the end of last summer, wintered them in pots, and they are now on the edge of exploding. I can't wait!!!

Ok, turns out the nursery didn't have New Zealand available after all. Something about it didn't come in. So I ended up getting New Day and Love Song at the meeting. (The meeting went great, btw, we had over 40 people show up!) BUT, I found another local nursery that carries New Zealand so I'm going to pick that one up this weekend! Yegads! I've bought too many this year, lol! I think I'm up to 9 new ones already. Better start shovel pruning!

Thanks for all your help!

You will like both of these roses. Here's a pretty New Day.