Anyway, this rose has a problem. It blooms in the usual season, around May, and then promptly loses its flowers and drops all its leaves. Over the rest of the summer, it struggles to produce another round of foliage (never very full), and limps along looking half dead, but no more flowers. What is the problem, and what can I do?

I love roses, but I have never had the pleasure of owning or caring for one before, and I feel I am quite out of my depth even in trying to maintain the one I inherited. I think it was planted when the trees back there were much smaller, as it is fairly shady and probably a pretty marginal location for roses. But the initial bloom is pretty nice--for around one week in spring.

I'd suggest you dig it up. There are several shade tolerant roses if you want a rose in that spot.

I'd start by determining if this is the rose you have; whether you want to maintain it or go for something more suited to resisting diseases and providing you with a longer season of color in your climate. Good luck! Kim

Or, perhaps the tough beauty, "Ragged Robin" -- properly named 'Gloire des Rosomanes':
http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=2.40908.1

Jeri
in Southern California

Any other ideas, anyone, for a climbing, shade-tolerant, disease-resistant rose variety? I like scent, too, if it's not too much to ask.

I would GUESS that it would be hardy enough for your area, but I haven't gardened there. Someone closer to you might know better. It is tolerant of a little shade here -- again, in Southern California.

But it is a very tough rose. Used as rootstock for decades, we find it all over California. I love mine. It's big, and lusty, and repeats very well.

Jeri

I have seen Huey put on a truly magnificent show -- but that was in Las Vegas, NV -- where blackspot wasn't happenin'. (And even so, it may have looked poorly, later in the year.)

'Dr. Huey' was accounted to be a great rose in its day -- but its day, for the most part, is done.

Jeri

See link below for my comments.

http://home.roadrunner.com/~kuska/illusion-the-plant.htm
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See the Help-Me-Find description at:

http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.3368

For reds, good old Don Juan does well here. It is pretty BS resistant, but I don't know about shade. Mine is behind a large shrub and was slow to grow until his top finally got into the sun. Robin Hood does very well in the shade, blooms continuously except in extreme heat (and winter, of course), and is fairly BS resistant. But it blooms are in clusters--small, but lots of them--and not very fragrant. I have had poor luck with Altissimo. Hybrid Musks, like Robin Hood, generally do well in shade.

I have a no-spray garden, so I don't do anything to combat blackspot except choose my roses carefully. There is a current post on here giving Paul Barden's BS resistant list. You might look at that.

Here's one more question: if I dig him out this fall, will the BS spores still be around in the spring to attack whatever I plant new? Or do I need to do some more extensive clean-up in preparation? I read that the spores don't survive in soil or for more than a month, but also that they overwinter on dead leaves.