I'm growing a new climbing rose, called 'Stairway to Heaven,' featured in this year's J & P catalog. I love this rose and highly recommend it!!! The description says it's red, but it is definitely a very deep pink. The buds are red, but when the large, ruffly, sweetly fragrant blooms open, THEY ARE deep PINK! This is one of my favorite roses and I can't say enough about it. It was the very first in my garden to bloom last year, bloomed all summer, and this year with our milder winter, it is STILL blooming! I have two and they are about 7ft. tall but are supposed to get over 10 ft.

Good old climbing Cecile Brunner is always a useful climber that will eat a house or trellis in no time, almost no thorns and has lovely fragrant pink mini HT like flowers-get the continuous blooming variety Everyone carries it-just look for or ask if it is continuous bloom. Awakening is a really great fragrant vigorous climber with larger double pink blooms. Also very easy to find-do a google if you cant find it locally. Actually you have the perfect climate for Roses-just avoid the super double types(Climbing Souvenier de la Malmaison comes to mind)if you dont want to fuss with balling(the buds wont open if they get wet)You can grow climbing teas and tea Noisettes-you are zone 8 and a nice mild z8 at that-I live north of you in the Skagit Valley Z7 with wind....patricia

mk,
Check out the pacific northwest forum under regions. There is quite a long thread on this. I myself have a new dawn climber that does pretty well with no spray. Only mild black spot. She is in partial shade too. I also grow a Handel that is going on its last summer if it doesn't bloom more this year and it becomes almost leafless from black spot in full sun. good luck.

Actually, I came here from there. Wanted to see if there was a wider set of opinions. I'm really sort of amazed that there aren't more people here from the pnw, given how many people grow roses here!

mk,
There are quite a few rose forumers from the pnw but we have had a gorgeous day here today so they're probably out in the garden.

New Dawn does great for me. Hasn't bloomed yet, but it's only been in one full year. Cl. White Maman Cochet is pink despite the name (and the catalog photo). Took a couple years to establish but now it's growing like a weed. Not too much disease but the flowers do ball. Stayed evergreen all winter long too.

Not many PNWers try to grow organically from my experience so most of them seem to be on the main rose forum. Just way too much blackspot. I try, but only as far as being careful what I spray with. And by feeding the soil and not the plants. No point growing roses after all if they're going to be diseased all the time.

I grow roses organically and I live in the wet zone in the Puget Sound Area. When I first started buying roses I had a lot of trouble and visited the King and Pierce counties ARS sites as well as the ARS site from Olympia and checked out their links. I also got good suggestions from contacting them (the societies) and also checked out nurseries deemed "reputable" for selling roses that can do well here without a lot of work. Another thing that really helped was checking out books from the library. I was told that a lot of England has the same climate so didn't limit myself to books written for the US. Specifically, a Peter Beales (he is British and has been knighted-or whatever, for his work with roses) book called "Roses: an illustrated encyclopaedia and grower's handbook of species roses, old roses and modern roses, shrub roses and climbers" published by H. Holt, c1992. He has lots of books but this one is my favorite because he doesn't limit to just old roses and he has specific codes like (WW) if a rose hates wet weather . The book is somewhat old but unless I am after new hybrid teas it is helpful. Many of the new English roses do well here. My neighbors grow Heritage and Abraham Darby which are both somewhat cupped roses and they don't need to provide much care to them at all. There are some great OGR climbers some like Veilchenblau (purple) and Mme Alfred Carriere (white) are quite rampant growrers. Veilchenblau is a once blooming summer rose and Mme. is repeat blooming and even likes poor soil and shade. There are roses farms in both the wet side of Oregon and Washington. Many breed their own and others test breeds in their fields and only sell the successful ones. There is a site by an Olympia ARS member that charts roses successes and failures. It is: http://www.oysterbay.net/ourhouse/rosechart.html#chart

Many of the people I have met in our local rose society don't seem interested in forums or even the internet and others are just too busy working and maintaining their gardens. I suspect that is why you have few responses. I certainly know of hundreds of people in the PNW who could be classified as rose lovers. You probably already have this but just in case http://www.ars.org/ If you are into old garden roses as I starting to be there is a group within the Seattle/King county society. Hope this helps.

I forgot. I live in Kitsap County west of Puget Sound and I don't live in the rainshadow area. I can safely claim we get as much rain as Seattle.

Thanks! The chart is great. I would love a Paul's Himalayan Musk, now that I've looked over the chart, but I'm putting it in a very large planter...will have to find out if that would work.

Hi all,

I'm new to GardenWeb & just found this forum.
I'd like to suggest the climbing version of 'The Fairy' rose. Mine is making slow progress due to interfering maple tree roots (that tree will go this year!), but I gave my sister one and it has numerous strong canes that reach about 14-15 feet...up and over the top of her garden shed. It blooms from summer until frost. They grown on their own roots and they are easy to propagate.

I'd like to try 'New Dawn'...read & hear nothing but good about it.

Patrick...SeaTac

cl. cecile brunner, new dawn or awakening are all fairly disease restant and large climbers.

As you are probably discovering, the PNW is a wonderful climate for roses, except for those roses that are prone to the dreaded blackspot! I would suggest checking out the forum on Old Garden Roses as well as a couple of relevant books. The first is called " Roses for the Pacific Northwest" by Christine Allen; the second "Roses for Washington and Oregon" by Brad Jalbert. The first is full of good advice and the second has better photos! Good luck!
Ian

That's what I get for carrying things in my empty head. I got it in my head that I wanted to try a Peace climber. Bought the thing, got it home, and read that it needs a hot climate. Has anyone grown it here? Shall I try to return it?

I got a sunsprite at the same time.

Peace roses are often virused... I had a non climber... it had a lot of blackspot and low vigor. Lovely flowers though.

A lot of very nice antique roses grow well here. I have a friend with hundreds of them... and most do very well.

I don't have New Dawn, but it is very pretty and seems to grow well in this area. I second the Climbing Cecile Brunner... they are so pretty, but get pretty big if you let them.

I also like American Pillar, which is a bright pink with white center single rose. It can also get quite big. It does sometimes get Mildew, but it is very vigorous and will live through nearly anything. They also root very easily and you can probably get one from someone on Gardenweb. I gave a friend some cuttings, and every one of them rooted. They do grow slow the first year or two on own root though. And they only really bloom once a year in spring with sporadic bloom later in the summer.

I'm growing roses organically this year, using as many disease resistant and OGR plants as possible. Am also thrilled using Messenger which has an organic element called Harpin that increases the plant's ability to fight off disease by boosting its immune system. So far, several of my infamous blackspotters have been cured or seriously diminished in leaf damage. At last! I use Messenger as a foliar spray every three weeks and will increase to once every two weeks or less for the recalcitrant roses. I have New Dawn and several noisettes (including Lavender Lassie) as well as Veilchenblau for climbers but they're too new to say how they'll perform.