I manage roses a bit differently than most gardeners. I buy them for the color and hopefully fragrance and ignore the breeding and fancy name. In fact the first thing I do when I get them home is rip off the tags - partly because I don't wanna know and partly because I don't believe things are always labeled correctly. If they suffer during the first summer I rip them out. If they do well, I propagate them and plant them around the yard.

I do shop for roses at every type of garden center and pay attention to anything listed as disease resistant and frangrant. The best performers in my yard came from other people's gardens or from Niche Gardens.

Not good to hear!!! I bought two of them!!! I really hope I have better luck :) Christy

There are many types of roses so I wouldn't give up on them just because you have had bad luck with hybrid teas from Walmart. If you visit the rose forums here you will find much to learn, and might get some ideas which roses would do well for you in your climate, and where you can buy them. I prefer own root roses to grafted ones. The ones you buy in bags, also known as " body bag" roses, are more likely to be virused, mislabelled, and the waxed canes don't help either. I have sometimes had good luck buying a bagged rose but at the very least you are more likely to get the rose you think you're buying if you buy from a rose nursery. If your soil is very sandy, you might have better luck with roses grafted on Fortuniana. Many in Florida plant those as they are more nematode resistant. If you really like roses, I hope you will not give up but learn more about the ones that are apt to do better for you. I think Rugosas can do better in sandy areas and some of those are very blackspot resistant. There are even some hybrid teas which have great disease resistance. See the current thread on Kordes roses on the roses forum. Breeders are paying more attention to disease resistance these days.

We have been excited this spring about the Freelander roses that our "fearless leader" has ordered and that we will offer for sale this summer. The series includes many hybrid teas that are supposed to perform (so they say) as well as the knockouts in that they are disease and blackspot resistent. Its my understanding that they were developed as a florist cutting rose and that they performed so spectacularly that they are now being offered to the nursery industry.

Here is a link that might be useful: Freelander Roses

I love roses but don't know much about the proper care. I too have very sandy soil, almost beach like in places and then after digging down a little it's a nice sandy loam. But I've had some uncanny good luck with the few I've put in the landscape here. Ive got a little mini rose, you know the kind they sell in the grocery store in the produce department, that I put out in the landscape after carrying it around from house to house in a pot. The crazy thing is waist high and has the most perfect little lavender blooms on it. It's a good bloomer too. I've had wonderful luck with Knockouts, got some in my front beds. And I bought a Nearly Black hybrid a couple of years ago. I thought it died so I emailed the company and they sent me a replacement. I thought that one died too so I gave up on that one. Last year I had a mysterious rose appear in the spot after thinking I had lost both of those the year before. The Nearly Black came back and this year it's about waist high and putting on leaves like crazy right now. I need to learn much more about them, but I do think I've found some happy spots in the yard for them.

Don't give up. Trianglejohn has the right idea. I only have two roses in NC because I just don't get enough sun..when when I lived outside of Houston where hot and humid are the rule I grew grandfloras in spite of the hot humid condition. I just kept them pruned so that air flowed through them and like john, if they didn't perform in one year..they were out! Because of my pruning method, they weren't the prettiest "bushes" but they had pretty flowers and that was what was important to me. My mother grew great roses in the sandy soil of Corpus Christi Texas where it is also very humid, but because of the wind there was natural air circulation. I think good air circulation can stop the black spot before it gets started. Don't give UP!!!!