Disease free roses that love serious winter, shade and drought..

I post a picture of this super hardy Alba rose every year.(variety "Alba Maxima).  This is ONE rose bush and it is at least 20' across and you can barely see the top of the barn roof behind.  The quirky thing about this very small class of roses is in order to thrive, they have to have a strong winter dormant period.  This same rose grown in California would always be puny.  Of course they love my garden... They are hardy zone 3, drought tolerant and disease free....

A couple pink Alba "Blush Hip" in the forground and a huge white one "Semi plena" Alba in the back...  Even though they super hardy. shade tolerant, disease free, and fragrant, their only drawback is they get huge.  These are not your wimpy hybrids available at nursery chains.. But any garden should be able to handle one...

There are only about a dozen varieties available and the ONLY place I recommend ordering them is  Pickering Nurseries in Canada. You must order now though for next spring..  

On the other hand do not be tempted into purchasing "Darlow's Enigma" which is also had disease free etc.  It overwhelms even my garden which is over an acre.  This year some handy hired help is going to cut most of it away and eradicate it..  Where you are looking in this photo there is supposed to be a path.!!!

I did take more pictures of some other good hardy roses and will post them later.

Remember that two of my favorite word pairs are "hired help" and :handy man" and I had both in the one person Thursday..  This is my "clean green" pile at the start and at the end of the day...  Our county accepts clean green, chops it up and it is used as mulch..