Portia, the rain won't be a problem. However, blackspot will be, depending on the varieties that you plant. Contact one of the Consulting Rosarians from the Philadelphia Rose Society, they will be able to give specific answers to your questions. Also, the Philadelphia Rose Society rose show is on June 1 at the Morris Arboretum, and the Del-Chester Rose Society's show is June 14th at Longwood Gardens. Stop by, and you'll see a wide range of roses grown in the area, and be able to talk to the growers.

This post was edited by diane_nj on Tue, Jun 3, 14 at 17:22

Oh fantastic, we are right near Longwood, I didn't realize they have a rose show! Thanks!

I always heard you are to plant a banana peel in the ground with the rose bush.I also use a container its fertilizer and something to keep bugs in both in 1 bottle.

I apologize, the date is wrong for the Del-Chester Rose Show. It is Saturday, June 14, 2014. If you bring a rose before 10 AM, you can come in the back way, tell them you are entering, and you can come in for the day. If you come after 10, you have to pay the regular Longwood entry fee.

I try not to use combination products. Usually the fertilizer and fungicide isn't strong enough, and there isn't a need to use an insecticide on a regular basis.

Thanks Diane! I joined Longwood as a member so I'm all set. I also pinged the Del-Chester rose group and apparently they aren't really an 'active' group any longer--said no new members and the group is kind of petering out. They recommended I join the Philly group if I was interested.

So far this year I've needed to use insecticidal soap since I was completely hit by sawfly larvae (had to google to find out what was going on) but other than that and a touch of powdery mildew the roses are doing ok, they are budding now.

I'm only letting them flower once this year to see the blooms and then I'll pinch the rest of the buds off to encourage root and plant growth for next year (these are own root).

I planted mostly OGR's with a few Austins so they may do better in this climate vs the more modern HT's.

Oh and re the banana peel, I read that you can soak a peel in water and then water the plants with that (particularly containers) a few times during the year to encourage healthy root growth. I've done it so I guess we'll see, but the plants are flourishing in terms of growth, definitely. Maybe it's all that rain. :)

Get ready for winter dieback too. My KO's and the like, HT's and the like were killed back to 12" from the ground this past winter in the Polar Vortex. But, stuff like carpet roses did better and my rugosa had zero dieback.

As far as care, one dose of rose food crystals dissolved in water and a light pruning is all I do. It stunk having to get rid of so many branches this year but such is life.

The prev owner has KO's and there was some dieback from the winter but not too bad, they have been blooming since early June. I prefer OGR's but the KO's are a good dose of bright color.

I bought almost all own-roots this year which will take longer to really mature, but hoping they will also do better than grafted in our area with some protection.

I just got first flowers on some of the own-roots, and a few others are budding. I've been feeding them with banana water about once a month and also blended compost in when planting, so it seems to be growing most of them quite nicely, they are very tall considering they were all band sizes originally!

Also interesting, they are doing quite well re: disease resistance so far--the only thing that has gotten blackspot is the grocery store rose re-planted into a big pot (love doing this because there's usually 4-5 plants in the original pot and they fill a larger pot very nicely for summer color); also there are some thrips going around, but not too many, so have been pleasantly surprised that we haven't seen TOO many issues with the roses--given the humidity I was worried.

This post was edited by portia on Sat, Jun 28, 14 at 18:19