Hi Mike, what does your local rose society promote as being of good black spot resistance? Since there are different populations of it around the country, what is clean for me in SoCal is likely not to be for you. Your request would be better answered by those who garden in your specific conditions.

I've grown Sebastian Kneipp for several years because of the information that he is healthy without spraying. He is...in a different climate than mine. He didn't rust, but there was regular mildew and more black spot than I desired so he now resides in someone else's garden. Once again, the best cure for disease was a shovel. Kim

Hi Mike, the only Zone 4-5, disease-resistants Kordes floribunda I know is their older rose called Eutin (red). First rose I ever grew, and I've had one or more in every garden I've had since--have 3 of them currently. Very easy-care rose.

My only complaint is that it sometimes takes longer between blooming cycles than I like--but not always.

On the other hand, outside the world of Kordes, have you looked at Our Lady of Guadalupe (silver pink floribunda)? That thing won't quit blooming, though sometimes the bloom can be heavier or lighter. I've only had her a couple years, but so far, almost no disease at all.

Good luck in your search.

Kate

I meant to add a couple Austin suggestions, but forgot. So here goes now.

I'm ordering Austin's Lady of Shalott for spring. Aside from its wild color (for Austin), it is described as about fool-proof, good rose for a beginner. Supposedly VERY DISEASE RESISTANT--I do hope that is true.

The other one I'd love to order if I had any rooms to spare is Alexandra of Kent--lucious pink--looks great and is supposed to be VERY DISEASE RESISTANT also. I wish I had room for a hedge row--I'd love about 6-10 of them along the driveway, for instance. But alas, I'd have to dig up a lot of other lovely roses that I already prize! So no go. : (

I'm quite excited about both of these Austins, even if I can only get one of them.

Kate

Hi Mike,
Have you checked the Palatine website? They rate their roses according to health, and the Kordes Fairy Tale series is rated quite highly. I have some of these roses and they are very vigorous and healthy (after a slow start because of multiflora rootstock in my alkaline soil). Since we have no blackspot or other fungal diseases here, I can't make claims for your area, but you might check them out, and also Palatine's floribunda listings. Diane

Mike,
I grow three of the fairy tale series that Kordes has produced: Lion's Rose, Pomponella and Caramel Fairy Tale. They are all in their second year and have all been bs free pretty much. The blooms are beautiful, but not fragrant, if that is of any importance to you.

I grew Golden Fairy Tale in Alabama but only for a year but was very impressed with its blooming and disease resistance.

We moved to a very mild, wet climate, coastal western Washington - so can't vouch for how my experience translates to your Michigan experience. I do like all three of those and would like to get a couple more of the fairy tales, esp the ones that have ADR designations.

I'll be curious about other's answers too. Good luck - I've heard really nice things about the two Austin's Kate mentioned. I grow no spray so am always interested in disease resistant roses.

I grow a number of Austins in my organic garden, without spraying, and they do very well in my garden setting.

They will get blackspot or drop their leaves in late summer, but this has not reduced their vigor or winter hardiness.

Bishop's Castle seems to hold onto its leaves better than some of the other Austins. The fragrance is wonderful.

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Mike, in my garden Caramel Fairy Tale (~5', 4 years) and Floral Fairy Tale (~2', 1st year) are blackspot free. No fungicide treatment at all this year (or last for CFT). Agree with harborrose, not fragrant, but abundant blooms.

I used to grow Our Lady of Guadaloupe, it was a beautiful bloomer, but did blackspot for me.

First off, Mike, I want to know where you are in MI that you don't get PM!? I'm moving, lol! I get it like mad here in the northeast burbs of Detroit!

The least BS affected rose in my garden is Julia Child. It's been nearly spot free all summer while most everything else has dropped their leaves at least twice. Golden Celebration is a spot magnet but my Graham Thomas does much better with only a mild case and contained to the bottom.

Anyone grow Sheila's Perfume?

I don't know the hardiness of these, but I highly recommend Cinderella (Fairytale) and Amaretto. Cinderella is especially pretty like an Austin, but it takes her blooms a couple of years to get that size and form.

Amaretto has not yet had the great form seen on HMF (in 2 years), but he's been putting on height. The colors are variable and lovely. Both are very disease-resistant.

Amaretto blooms more frequently, unless my Cinderella is still just growing plant over blooms, which is possible.

I'm impressed with the recent Kordes introductions! Home&Garden, Kosmos, Golden Fairy Tale, Caramel Antique, Escimo and Orange Veranda have all been consistently outstanding for me. A newly planted Zaide looks promising. (I've just ordered Red Riding Hood and Poseidon.)

Of course I'm in a different climate where black spot is not a major problem, but so far these roses have been impervious to the diseases I do have to guard against--mildew and rust.

Colleen

Mike,

You should keep the roses you most love and add roses that you hope to love that much. Otherwise, what's the point? Your neighbors would enjoy a display of Knock Outs and annuals just as much, but that's not why you've spent decades learning how to grow roses.

Spraying is not physically demanding compared to pruning or spreading alfalfa under the mulch. If you are sick or feeling ornery and don't spray for a month, the roses will be fine. If you don't spray for two months, they will recover or maybe you lose a couple over the winter.

I am really glad Kordes and other growers are getting serious about disease resistance, but if flowers lack fragrance and sex appeal, I'm not that interested. The only floribundas I'm currently giving yard room to are 'Irish Hope' and 'Gruss an Aachen,' if you count the latter as a floribunda. Anyway, of roses recommended as blackspot resistant, 95% of them are not resistant in my garden.

You might like 'Heaven on Earth,' which has a fragrant, very double flower and above-average resistance.

Or if you want to go whole hog for low maintenance, gallicas and albas would be rewarding in your cllimate.

Mike

Check out the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden at the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG.org). They have done great work in creating a rose garden of hardy, disease resistant roses. There is a list of the 100 top performing roses for each year. This is a great list to start from since the work of tracking down and testing the "best" roses has been done for you. You will find Kordes fairytale roses on the list as well as a few Austins as well as many more. It is quite a varied list.

I have the Kordes rose "Eliza" and this is nearly completely disease free for two years. Cold hardy to the canes. I am zone 5. Tall though - could be classed as a grandiflora and don't exactly know why it isn't. Very easy pink rose. I have not sprayed it in the two years either. Have grafted from Pickering.

predfern, I had Sheila's Perfume back in the early 80s as a rooted plant from a friend's British import. She was a HORSE! In my arid, mid desert climate, she produced thick, strong wood and about a six foot tall plant, nearly as wide as tall. Dense, healthy, heavy foliage, many fragrant flowers with very decorative sepals. I can't attest to how healthy she might be elsewhere, but in that garden she was spectacular. Quite an impressive outcome from an amateur who raised his rose seedlings on his kitchen window sill! Kim

Seil, I live in Lansing and I'm surprised that your roses get mildew. I thought mildew was a California-type problem. My phlox get mildew but my roses don't, not even a speck.

Thanks to all of you for your suggestions. Using them, I eventually came up with a dozen Kordes roses that I think will appeal to me and which hold strong promise of being disease-free in my garden. (If anyone's interested, this is my list: Pomponella, Red Riding Hood Fairy Tale, Home and Garden, Cinderella Fairy Tale, Eliza, Larissa, Mon Petit Chou, Poseidon, Zaide, Alexandra Princesse de Luxembourg, Golden Fairy Tale, and Solero Vigorosa)

Michaelg's comments really made me think about the direction I want to take with my roses. For the past 40 years, I mostly would become infatuated with one type of rose and clear my garden of all others, and then change my mind. So, I started with Hybrid Teas, two years later switched to Foribundas, then to miniatures, to Portlands, to Austins, and lastly Polyanthas - greatly abetted by Cliff Orent's offerings. Right now, I have about 10 Polyanthas that I feel are without peer and which I will keep always. I can make room for both the dozen Kordes roses and some of the newer Austins, especially Princess Anne and The Skylark (assuming these two will be available in 2012 - I'm betting they will be), Munstead Wood, Young Lycidas, Harlow Carr and Sister Elizabeth. Then, my hope for the future is that I will stick with these roses, let them reach such maturity as they can in a zone 5 garden, and be reasonably content - well, I will still order a few new roses each year.

Mike, thanks for letting us know what you're planning to do. Some of those Kordes roses I hadn't heard about.

I'm also curious about the ten polyanthas you grow that you like.

I am a polyantha fan too. Polys do well up here and I'm gradually finding out which ones I like and am interested in others I might not know about.

So far, Baptiste la Fay, Marie Pavie, and Petite Francoise for me have been wonderful. Would you mind telling me which ones you like?

Floral Fairy Tale is quite resistant even here and blooms non stop. It is also fragrant. The only negative is that it is not self cleaning, so needs pinching of old blooms to look good.
Laguna is resistant too, but it is a climber.
Olga

Harborrose, my favorite polyanthas: Rosenprinzessin, Baptiste Lafaye, Grafin Esterhazy, Rotkappchen, Verdun, Marie Daly (the pink sport of Marie Pavie), Too Cute (Kim's rose), Raymond Privat, The Faun (Bossa Nova, not everyone calls this a poly) and Sweet Chariot (Hardly anyone calls this a poly but I think of it that way and I also think it's one of the best of all roses). I also have 4 polyanthas scheduled for delivery in 2013 from Sequoia that I think will be excellent: Primerose Sistau, Marie Brissonat, Herzblattchen and Gloire des Polyanthas.

Thanks for your suggestion, Olga. Another one to mull over.

Mid September and my rose garden is a mess. Hardly any blooming. Weeds, weeds!

But one rose outstanding. Eutin (Oetin). It is covered with brilliant single red flowers. Very hardy no BS even gets few if any JB's.

I have 60 or so Kordes roses. Most are outstanding.

Mike, thank you! I'm pleased Too Cute makes you happy and behaves for you! You might find it interesting to know it's proven seed fertile. I have several coming along from it, particularly using Julia Child pollen on it. I'm hoping to work it into the breeding line for further poly development.

I agree with you, Sweet Chariot and Vineyard Song are both polys, both from behavior, appearance, use and genetics. Kim

Mike,

I'm in Oregon under what I would describe as 'high blackspot pressure' and I rarely spray. While I have never had a modern rose stay completely clean Midnight Blue has been a real champ at fighting it off and so far Koko Loco looks very promsing on its first year in the ground

Mike, I didn't know if you sprayed for mildew or blackspot but Bayer Disease works great on my phlox for mildew. I don't spray it everytime I spray my roses but try to spray them at least once a month. I spray alot of things with it and it works wonderful. My tulip trees tend to get mildew too but zapping it a couple times a year stops it. My phlox mildewed this year for the first time in forever because I just didn't spray hardly anything due to the high temps and no rain. Take care, Judy

Mile,

Kordes has been busy breeding really great disease resistant roses- not just shrubs but a really good line of HT's and Floribunda roses with great disease resitance. So if you want this type of flower form and do not to spray consider the following:

new on the market:
Poseidon (Novalis)- lavender floribunda
Desmond Tutu(Jugendleibe in Germany)- velvet red floribunda
Grande Amore - red HT ADR winner and many awards
Beverly - Pink HT won 2 fragrance awards in Europe
Sunny Ske - Yellow HT
Sommersonne - Oragne blend ADR winner

Palatine probably has thwe widest selection this year but other catalogs are picking these roses up. There should be wide avaialbility of these roses in garden centers in the next two to three years.

The Fairy Tale roses are also very good floribundas and are avaialbe through a wide range of catalogs. If you want to see photos the Kordes website is in Engligh with good images.

Mike,

Did you get all the roses on your list? Any early reports?

Mike, I had a number of recent Kordes roses in my no spray garden. I was very pleased with the then latest Kordes roses the last 5 years or so that I grew them. Unfortunately, I cannot simply go out and tell you which were the best. Due to my age, I cut down from about 1000 roses to about 50, all of my own creation (i.e. all of the commercial ones were given away). I assume their latest are as good or even better since Ontario is now no-spray. i.e.I would expect that you could not go very wrong simply asking Palatine and Pickering for recommendations.

These are the Kordes roses now in my garden: Eliza, Red Riding Hood, Grand Amore, Pomponella, Golden Fairy Tale and Cinderella Fairy Tale. It is too early to make any judgements, especially since this season was unusually hot and all my roses seemed to just shut down for more than a month in July and early August. This was also an unusually bad year for blackspot and I finally ended up spraying my Austin roses three times while every one of the Kordes roses has remained absolutely free of blackspot with no spraying.

Mike,
Pomponella is not a medium-sized rose by any means. Just look at mine. There are two bushes growing side by side. One bush is approximately 6' tall by 6' wide.

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Cinderella is huge, too. This is one bush, about 6' tall by 8' wide

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Just wanted to warn you so you can position these roses accordingly.

Marina

I am wild abut my South Africa rose, which is one of the newer Kordes roses. It is the healhtiest thing I have ever seen! Give it lots of space. Its been a nonstop bloom machine for me this summer! My Beverly is just a first year rose but growing fast with healthy foliage. Brothers Grimm Fairytale is my favorite of the Fairytale roses. Leibeszauber is an excellent red that is growing tall and strong.Summer Memories and THanksgiving rose likewise are doing well. Thanksgiving rose is a first year and I hope the roses are a bit more shapely by next year but the plant is healthy and beautiful. BLack Forest is a nice little sparkler that I planted a few months ago. The red climber, Amaedeus, is amzing and fast growing.

I think you are very wise to go this direction with your roses.I am thinking along the same lines.

The Dark Lady, Yikes! Your roses are beautiful, but I sure wasn't counting on that size. Maybe my winters will take care of matters.

Very nice with the update. I must try some in the fairytale series too. This is inspiring :- )

I have a Kordes rose which stands out as particularly healthy and flowering well into autumn; Westerland. It is not new, but tried and tested.

Yes I have Cinderella and Pomponella as well and they are mighty big plants. No use trying to get them to be smaller.

well Cinderella (and Jasmina) is classed as a small climber (to about 2m) but Pomponella stays much neater (around 1m)at least for me in the UK)

Mike, I am really surprised that the chinensis Grafin Esterhazy does well for you. I had it for only one season 10 years ago and Marily Young told me in a mail that it was a weak plant even in the Roseto botanico at Cavriglia in Italy. This made me feel not so bad about the loss.

I have only two Kordes floribundas, Floral Fairy Tale and Red Riding Hood, the latter is new in my garden and came to me as a trial plant in spring. I am taking part in a three-year trial project with 123 Swedish participants testing 2400 plants from several rose breeders, Austin, Bailey, Ilsink, Kordes, Poulsen, Tantau and Peter Hoy in Finland. My other trial plants are five roses from Tantau, another German breeder who breeds for health. I am very pleased with all of them so far, Alabaster, Baronesse, Pastella, Mariatheresia and Uetersener Klosterrose. The purpose is to test these roses in our harsh climate so as this is the first year we don't know how they will handle our winters. None of us knew what to expect from the roses sent to us, neither the colour nor the varieties, and I decided to go through with this but wasn't sure that I'd keep the roses after the trial period. I know now that I will certainly keep mine if they survive. They are all great roses.

Mike, you're in MI and the Dark Lady is in VA. I wouldn't count on yours getting as large with out winters. I think you'll get more winter die back so they'll probably stay smaller.

I don't know if she's Winter hardy for you but Beverly is a beautiful Kordes ht, she smells wonderful, repeats frequently, and is fairly low thorned.
I have almost all of the Fairytale roses (Cinderella, Lions, Brothers Grimm, Sisters, Pomponella, Golden, Floral, Kosmos, and Red Riding Hood)and they are disease resistant but they are not very fragrant(if at all)and they are VERY THORNY for the most part. They do not repeat as well as I would like considering they get big and thorny and have no fragrance. It could be that they're better in a colder climate. They have been a let-down as I planted them to replace Knock-outs but they get just as big, have no scent, are just as thorny (or thornier!), but do not repeat near as well. Of the Fairy tales I like Golden FT, Brothers Grimm FT, Pomponella and Red Riding Hood the best.
I also have Sunny Sky, Winter Sun, South Africa, Buxom Beauty, Sweet Beauty, Grande Amour, Eliza, Poseidon, Solero and Zaide. Buxom Beauty is the most beautiful rose I own, but she's a little slow to repeat. They are all new last year, and this Summer has been Hell on them (100 degree plus temps for months and major drought). I am hoping the repeat will be better next year. All are very disease resistant so far and I very seldom spray (maybe once or twice in early Spring). I cram all of my roses into a too-small space and let them fight it out so I don't exactly have ideal growing conditions esp. in the hot, humid South.
The new Austin rose, Lady of Shallott, is also very disease resistant, fairly low thorned and beautiful:)

Don't count on 'Pomponella' and 'South Africa' being small, mannerly roses. Both are beasts here in Zone 5 central Illinois. I just don't get any cane dieback on these two. 'Pomponella' has just smothered every rose in her vicinity and I give her regular haircuts...which she evidently relishes because she is a non-stop bloomer. Give her plenty of real estate because she has long, long canes always full of blooms....she's one gorgeous girl!

also, apart from the hulthemias, Pomponella is absolutely pristine when every other rose in my garden has some degree of blackspot - every single one, even the species, apart from Pomponella and 4 hulthemias - quite astonishing.

Mike, I wonder if you could give us an update on your Kordes rose garden you discussed back in 2011. I keep adding more and more of the Kordes Fairy Tale roses and other Kordes roses from Palatine Roses and continue to be extremely impressed with all of them. My goal is to have a spray-free garden and have not had to use a fungicide on any of these for two years. They have been hardy for me, disease resistant, impressive bloomers and re-bloomers. I never thought I could grow a lavender rose because they tend to be blackspot magnets, but the Kordes Poseidon is amazing. The combination of Kordes new breeding program for disease resistant roses and the quality of Palatine roses has made a wonderful difference in my rose garden.

karenforroses,

Did you see that the Rose Hybridizer group agrees with you? Link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Novalis/Poseidon (mauve)

Karen, I haven't had much time this year to work with my roses but all six of the Kordes roses are doing fine. None of them has been sprayed and none has shown even a trace of blackspot. None of them has been watered, either, and that has probably hurt the rebloom. The three roses that most impress me with both their looks and their rebloom are Pomponella, Golden Fairy tale and Red Riding Hood. Cinderella Fairy Tale has not been especially good at rebloom but again that may be due to a lack of water. None of the roses had more than a few inches of dieback last Winter and all of the roses have canes approaching six feet. I plan to do fairly severe pruning next Spring and I suspect I will end up with fairly bushy 4 foot plants, which will suit me fine. I placed an order with Palatines for 4 more Kordes roses for Spring delivery: Pink Martini, Beverly, Poseidon and Zaide. Overall, I'm very pleased with my Kordes roses - but I'm not about to give up my Austins, either.

As much as I admire my Kordes roses, I find they do not make my heart sing the way my Austins do.

Glad to hear your Kordes bed is doing so well.

Kate