I echo your disclaimer, but agree with your points.

I also get nice blooms in spring and fall.

I have numerous welts from fire ant bites as I enter this. They swarmed me when I disturbed a nest I was unaware was there.

I offer both sincere congratulations and empathy.

amber, do you buy roses on fortuiana? That is supposed to be best for Florida. I am in North Georgia, but am going to try some fort roses next year. Have you thought about raised beds, or even large pots buried in the sand for your roses?

I can sympathize with the heat, humidity, the blackspot and the fire ants! I picked up something in my yard and put it under my arm and it must have been covered in fire ants. I immediately had extreme burning pain and days later still have a dozen red itchy welts in that area. Yikes!

Amberroses,
I tried and failed with a number of different roses, couldn't keep up with the blackspot. I found the Belinda's Dream from Nelson's roses to be as trouble free as some of the weeds in yard. I planted this one after the 2004 hurricanes took out my other ones. I never have to spray it for blackspot. It keeps giving beautiful blooms and new growth. Nelson's has a number of roses just for Florida and also a book on growing roses in Fla. Check them out.
I love that Ortho commercial, "Fire ants must die"

I have roses on Fortuniana, Dr. Huey, and own root. I started growing roses in my garden about 10 years ago. My conclusion is there is no single "right" approach to take for your average Florida home grower.

Fortuniana does seem to be the best one one for heat tolerance and vigorous growth. Unfortunately you cannot always find the the variety you want on Fortuniana and it does cost a little more. The practical importance of the nematode issue is not settled in my mind. To be honest my roses hardly ever outright die, I usually pull them when they look so pathetic I can't stand them anymore. I have a small yard and limited space. So far as I'm aware, nematodes haven't severely attacked any of my roses. I'm not sure about this, but I've never seen the root knots on any of the roses I've pulled. Maybe you cannot see them on rose roots? I can always tell when my other plants have nematodes by these knots.

Dr. Huey doesn't do as well in the heat and isn't as vigorous, but it is more widely available. Last week I pulled my oldest Dr. Huey plant because the Natchitoches Noisette rose next to it was shading it too much on the North side of the house. It was still blooming though. This rose was the modern hybrid tea rose Queen Mary 2. I bet you'd never guess that Queen Mary 2 would have been one of my longest lived roses at almost 10 years. If I'm going to plant Dr. Huey, I plant it containers or in a cooler location where the sun doesn't beat down on the roots.

I also grow some own root roses. The old garden roses I've planted own root seem to do well in the ground. Natchitoches Noisette does too well. The oldest of these are maybe 6 or 7 years. I plant modern own root roses in pots, but I haven't tried them in the ground. The problem with grafted plants (Dr. Huey or Fortuniana) is that over time the main canes die and the graft seems to get old and calloused over. It cannot produce new canes as well and the plant declines. My oldest Fortuniana plant is about to get pulled for this reason.

I had Belinda's Dream on Fortuniana and I agree it is a great plant. I'll probably get another one some day. I actually got to visit the Nelson's nursery once. They have so many roses!

Fire Ants really must die! I do break out the chemicals to kill them and the wasps.

Manure is the solution to our poor soil. I'm on the ridge and started out with pure sugar sand. Over the years, I have built up decent garden soil with manure applied as often as I can. I have mostly antique roses with a few others like Elina and Belinda's Dream mixed in. Chili thrips are an ongoing problem here, though, in the summer months.

You forgot to mention pocket gophers.

I really feel for people struggling with chilli thrips, but the other things are manageable. Fortuniana rootstock takes care of the nematode issue completely. If you have sandy soil, in addition to manure, add 10-15% fine clay in the form of plain cat litter. It makes a wonderful difference.

In my limited experience there, roses did fine in summer because you usually get 2" of rain per week, and it's not as hot as the inland South or Texas, much less the southwestern desert. Plants like high humidity. Blackspot is significantly worse here in the mountains than in Florida--though it's plenty bad there, and we needed to spray regularly. Late fall through mid-spring, Florida has ideal growing weather and not a lot of disease pressure.

I don't know michaelg- it's pretty dang hot here :) The heat index is usually well over 100 in the summer. When it is hot and very humid a lot of plants that are not tropical in origin tend to sulk and rot. It doesn't cool off at night much below 80 either. I can imagine that people growing in the dry heat have their own set of problems.

I can deal with all of the bad things about growing roses in Florida and enjoy the blooms anyway.

2 inch's of rain a day would be a blessing in the summer, we get 4-6 plus the humidity is 85-100%. So the disease pressure can be immense. I'm not bragging about our sorry summers but...
I will definitely try the cat litter. I former coworker was quite a rose gardener, he said San Francisco was ideal for growing roses. That's a far cry from our weather. Good to hear others have had good response to Belinda's Dream.

We got 4 1/2 inches of rain here yesterday. and it is supposed to rain all week. Sometimes though, it will not rain for weeks at a time and the sandy soil is like a desert, albeit a very humid desert :).

I thought of another blessing to the Florida rose grower. No RRD yet, as far as I know.

Having grown up there without air conditioning, I'm not trying to pooh-pooh the relentless Florida heat, but the humidity actually makes it easier on plants--heat index applies to animals, not plants.

Do try the cat litter, up to 2" dug in 14" deep.

What's RRD?
I haven't had the Chilli Thrips yet either. I have some research to do...

Fire ants must die! The only thing I use chems on, too.

TODAY, I was dowsing a hill by our front door. (I leave them alone unless they are in our travel paths.) Finished that and got out the iron sulfate for a few pale roses. Stood in a hidden hill and got bit 4-7 times. Got out of there and cleaned my right foot off.

Then I went around the corner with the iron and stood in a pile with my left foot. Arrrggg. I swear that, for a moment, I considered whether I would give up gardening. They hurt that bad...

My fall flush is always the better flush here. In the spring it is so hot, so fast, that most springs are meh.

thonotorose- My fall flush is better than the spring one too. There isn't enough rain yet in the spring to get the roses going. Oh the PAIN of those fire ants! They build those tricky nests low to the ground so you can't see them.

TCGardener- RDD is rose rosette disease. It is cause by a virus and it is very bad news. Thankfully, I haven't had much reason to learn too much about it yet.

michaelg- You really lived in Florida without a/c? How were you able to survive it? :) I know plants don't "feel" the heat index like we do, but it does make a difference to them. When it is both hot and humid, in addition to causing all kinds of disease, it cools down slower at night. I've never seen a rose garden look very good in the summer here, not even Disney World. Incidentally, Disney World is slowly getting rid of their beautiful hybrid teas, floribundas, and grandifloras and replacing them with Knockouts and Drift roses. I do kinda like the Drift roses though.

"How were you able to survive it?"

Shade trees on the west and an attic fan for night-time. Close the windows during the day and it stays around 80-82 inside. Kick up a breeze with a portable fan. Keep the salt and butter in the refrigerator. Not really that bad unless you are working outside after 10 AM, or cooking, ironing.

Wait until you get bitten by a "tiny fire ant". They're worse than the regular ones. I don't have them--yet--but my sister does, and she won't even work in her garden any more.

Yes to kitty litter. I've been using it for years but started using more after Michael's advice to do so. I do whatever Michael says.

Chilli Thrips are the bane of my existence. A new batch hatches out every two weeks during warm months. I've never sprayed my roses, but I've become desperate enough to do so now. I do it just before dark after the bees and butterflies have gone to bed. I'm trying something called Suffoil the manufacturer says will kill CTs.

Tiny fire ants? What the heck? Regular fire ants are tiny enough.

I didn't get the chilli thrips until August this year.

FlaRosez9,

I have those too. For years!!! My mother (90) complained several years ago that things were biting her in her bed. I thought that she was having skin issues and was mistaken.

Well, let me tell you, they are he!! About every four months, I have to pull our beds out from the walls and spray thoroughly everywhere the bed comes into contact with anything. Then I put down a layer of diatomaceous earth and we're good to go for a while.

We are in a wet zone and have a swamp by the house. I think all the rain causes them to look for a drier place to be. The sugar based baits seem to help, too.

Amberroses, these tiny ants are no larger than the size of the period at the end of this sentence. !!!!! They don't raise a welt, but they do have a powerful and bothersome sting.

I've toyed with the idea of moving away from Florida (for other reasons) after my mother passes. Now I am thinking of it again.

Thonotorose, you would probably just trade one pest for another if you move, LOL. I don't think it has anything to do with the rain. I think they just like buildings. Parts of Texas are overrun with them. I understand they get into power plant machinery, sewage plants, etc, and destroy everything they get in. Unlike regular fire ants, they get on bushes and in trees. When you walk by, they drop on you and start stinging.

One windy day, my sister took her dog swimming in our creek, and they were floating everywhere on the surface of the water, I guess blown by the wind. She and the dog were covered in them before they knew it. Of course, both were stung all over. She's just down the road from me, so it won't be long before they get here. Fortunately, she's downstream, so it won't be by creek.

I no longer swap plants and cuttings with her since she thinks she got them by bringing them in on a plant. Give me a regular old fire ant any day.

As far as the kitty litter goes, I use the cheap Special Kitty brand from Walmart. It's just pure clay, no additives. It was less than $2 for a 25 pound bag when I first started buying it, but it's gone up since, of course, and now is only 20 pounds, but it's still the cheapest I've found.

In my neck of the woods in Texas a different species of ant was introduced to kill the fire ants. It worked, no more fire ants, but the intro'd ants, called raspberry crazy ants, have taken over and are very hard to kill. They invade EVERTHING! electrical boxes, cars, trees, roses.....you get the picture. Thankfully we haven't had them in the house but my husband faithfully keeps the perimeter of out home sprayed. I almost would prefer the fire ants lol, not really but it seems one pest was traded for another pest that is annoying in its own way.

Boncrow, do the crazy ants sting? Maybe they're the same thing.

Rasberry Crazy Ant (Nylanderia fulva)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasberry_crazy_ant

Little Fire Ant (Wasmannia auropunctata)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_ant

:-)

~Christopher

It seems the raspberry (aka tawny) crazy ants do not sting and were not deliberately introduced, but immigrated from Argentina somehow.

The name "crazy ants" has also been applied to the small, non-biting ants that sometimes nest in potted plants, Unlike the newcomers, they don't cause any serious problems.

Here is a link that might be useful: ants

I have indoor cats and collect the poo and kitty-litter and dig a hole in the rose-garden and dump it there, it sure seems to help! I think the poo needs to compost awhile before it helps the roses, I was told that it takes nitrogen from the roses while it breaks down....LOL, sally

We were told by our county extension agent that the crazy ants were intentionally brought in to get rid of fire ants. They do not bite or sting as far as I can tell so that's a plus but they are everywhere and I don't care how they got here lol, just wish after they killed the fire ants they would go away. They have destroyed one of our neighbors wiring in his electrical box and even killed a tree where they made a nest. Very annoying little buggars. My info could be wrong about how they got here.

boncrow, your info could be right. The agent should know. I just haven't seen any record of it. Government agencies have gotten very cautious about introducing exotics, and none too soon.

Finally a name! Thank you...

Regardless of how they got to my area I wish they would go away. They are invasive and from what I have read bad for the Eco system by killing insects that birds would normally eat.