Welcome to the world of roses Susan!

I would suggest the floribunda Belinda's Dream for a Florida starter rose. One of my first container roses was Belinda's Dream and Moonstone on fortuniana rootstock. Both fueled my fire for growing roses.

Good Luck!

Adrian.

Thank you so much for your responses. I decided on a double knockout because I heard it was disease free and because it was readily available, Will see how it goes . I will post pics. Thanks again

Hi Susan,
I have found that Belinda's Dream and John Paul II are both more disease resistant in my garden than double knockout. If you would like a red rose, you may want to try Veteran's Honor or Don Juan (climber). Once you're hooked on roses, you'll want to look over the Antique Rose forum to learn about chinas, teas and noisettes. Good luck!

Avalon

picture of new roses

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Belinda's Dream is an excellent no-spray choice. You may also want to look into some of the china and Bermuda Mystery roses. Louis Philippe and Old Blush, both chinas, would most likely do well for you in the ground, and would not have to be sprayed. They all make great landscape roses. Mrs. B.R. Cant, and old tea, would not need to be sprayed either, and she makes a huge beautiful bush with very full flowers. She's one of the best. The website HelpMeFind.com/roses is fabulous, and you can look up all sorts of roses on it.

Many of us that belong to the Central Florida Heritage Rose Society haven't had the greatest luck with the Knockout series looking good year round. It is most definately not disease free, and spider mites, thrips, etc. like it as well as any other plant. (Actually there is no such thing as a plant that is "disease free", but they certainly can be disease resistant). However, you may have a different experience.

If you do decide to plant roses in the ground, be sure to mix in some good compost with the native soil. You may want to seek out some experienced people from your local rose society. Not only will you learn a great deal, but you'll have lots of fun!

Sandy

Belinda's Dream really is a great choice. Especially if you want fragrant, perfectly shaped roses. She's the one that got me hooked. It was my first rose here in South Florida (I have since gotten another one) and I now have over 50 roses in my garden. I grow them all in containers though because I don't have garden space in full sun. BD has been a no spray dream and is always full of buds and blooms. Thrips do like her, but her blooms are so full you wont even see the thrip damage when she opens.

Another really good choice is Duchess De Brabant. She has smaller less formal flowers but very delicate and she is no fuss. My knock outs have not done that well. They do bloom alot but the flowers are small and not neatly formed with no fragrance so they are just boring to me.

Try Quietness. She's also a beauty and easy to grow.
I've also had luck with Mr. Lincoln (though it grows gangly, but still blooms even with black spot). Joseph's coat is doing well too this year despite its first two years of being down-right-ugly.

About Face is doing superb as well. She's had BS in the past, but seems to have outgrown it. Olympiad and Love rose have also done well for me as well as Gold Medal, perfume delight and All American Beauty.

I've also had luck with Huntington Rose and Jubilee Celebration from David Austin and alot of the Kordes roses have done well for me too (the fairy tale series). But they are all in their first season so its hard to tell what will happen.

Spraying is a real b*tch, but almost a requirement if you are growing HT roses here. I spray mine but only when absolutely totally necessary (like when i hear there's going to be a week of non stop rain). Otherwise I just let them get black spot (hand pick off the infected leaves to limit the spreading in the summer and do my hard pruning in the fall. Once October comes around you can pretty much get away with not spraying at all until May :)

If you grow them in containers they require a little more work. You have to water more often and feed regularly, but its worth the work. You wont have to worry so much about soil conditions, nematodes etc and you can move your roses around so they get the optimal amount of sun during the changing seasons. So it has its pluses and drawbacks.

If you want to grow them in the ground, make sure to get them grafted on fortuniana rootstock. That's the only way your roses can survive for more than 6 years in the ground here. Make sure you amend your soil with store bought top soil (miracle grow makes one especially for roses) at the very least. Dr Huey roots will do well too, but they may only live to about 5 years. (most store bought roses are on Dr. Huey) Then again, roses in our climate live much shorter lives since they never go dormant in the winter, so either way they don't have long life spans. Pruning them hard once a year helps them to go somewhat dormant and will help them become bushier healthy plants. Even if we don't have freezes.

Good luck!

dsd2682: could you please explain why is that "If you want to grow them in the ground, make sure to get them grafted on fortuniana rootstock. That's the only way your roses can survive for more than 6 years in the ground here.". I am a novice and I would appreciate an explanation.

This year I started growing a few DA roses (Abraham Darby, Crown Princess Margareta, and James Galway) but I don't know if they were grafted on fortuniana (bought from Chamblee and Hortico). Thank you. Alex

Hi Alex,
The reason why we buy grafted roses in florida is because of the root knot nematodes found in our sandy soils. These microscopic worms can wreak havoc on rose roots which they find irresistible. Roses on their own roots can and most likely will fall victim and die after a few years.
However roses grafted on to fortuniana root stalk have two advantages. One is that they don't attract nematodes and two is that this specific root system sends down what is known as a 'tap root' which makes it very drought tolerant. A tap root is basically a very long deep growing root that searches for water deep in the earth. Not all plants have this but it is a feature of many drought tolerant plants such as vincas, gauras, cosmos etc. This tap root does have a down side and that is that they don't transplant well. Once the tap root(s) are broken, which almost always happens when transplanting because of their length, the plant then has trouble taking in water and may die or take a long time to recover (essentially trying to grow another tap root to hydrate itself).
Roses on fortuniana therefor can tolerate our intensely hot climates with much greater ease although they may not transplant well.
Keep in mind however that this does not mean that you can't grow any roses on their own roots. Many old garden roses and tea roses (not to be mistaken for hybrid tea roses mind you) are nematode resistant and like our hot climate. Also nematodes don't like organic matter, they like sandy soil, so you may have success with own root roses planted in highly amended soil.
I grow all of my own root roses in containers. I feel I can baby them better this way but that's not to say they can't be well cared for in the ground. Here are a couple of great links that go more into detail about this. As well as a great blog on rose gardening in Fl.

http://miami-dade.ifas.ufl.edu/old/programs/urbanhort/publications/old-roses-for-south-florida.htm

http://miami-dade.ifas.ufl.edu/pdfs/urban_hort/roses-for-south-fl.PDF

http://sherryocala.blogspot.com/

Also, you can purchase roses on fortuniana at cool roses and k&m roses

Hey DSD2682 - Thank you so much for sharing information about growing roses south of Central Florida. Its hard to find an experienced rosarian for this far south. But I am curious as to the Fortuninia tap root. I have been under the impression that Fortuninia did not have a tap root and had a very shallow root system that spread out rather than a tap root. I have never found one on my grafted roses and I moved a lot of my fortuninia grafted roses around. I always thought that it was Dr. Huey had the tap root and tap root was a bad thing in our sand. Whata I know! James Mills seems to agree with you that Fortuninia has a tap root. Of course other professional disagree. I will have to pay more attention to my grafted rose when I dig them up to move them.-)

When you make reference to roses not lasting more than 6 years, are you talking about hybrid teas? I moved away for HTs about 15 years ago. Growing hybrid teas did not suit my garden style. For me the bushes themselves were just plain ugly, beautiful flowers, but even fully leafed out, still not attractive bushes. Oh and the codling of the plants, wew, I am glad I am not doing that any more. So my experience with HT is very out dated. I found that many OGRs are much easier for me to grow and many of my OGRs are well over 12 years old. They also mix well with my other garden plants. Of course every gardener is different. My style is cottage type garden.
I certainly agree that fortuninia is the only way to go unless your roses are in pots. Like you have my own root in pots.

Again thank you for your information on fortuninia rootstock.

Kraig