The most important issue in caring for a rose is choosing one that will thrive where it is to be grown. Factors of temperature, light, humidity, water/rainfall, soil fertility, root competition, shade, and so on need to be considered.
Some cultivars will thrive in almost any environment. In cool, temperate climates, most Albas. Rugosas and Gallicas, for instance, will produce delighful, dense shrubs even if grown in moderately poor soil and given just four hours of direct sun per day. They are quite vigorous and range from being completely free of disease to thriving despite having some infestation.
Damasks will need more sunlight, but may thrive in drier conditions. Disease resistance is more of a mixed bag. Of the Damask Rose Ipsilante, David Austin says 'It is the most disease-resistant among old garden roses.' Most Gallicas are pretty good. But there are Gallicas and Portlands that are affected by fungal disease.
Centifolias, Portlands, and Mosses can be devastated by downy mildew. It may be that some are quite good, but in my own garden Gloire de Mosseusses was decimated by disease so early in the season that I improved the health of Fantin Latour and Constance Spry - growing at the other end of the garden - by removing it altogether.
Bourbons are said to have a weakness for blackspot. Compared to other old garden roses this may be so, but my worst bourbon is as resistant as many of my hybrid teas.
Hybrid Perpetuals are a mixed bag. The worst 90 + percent of them have been abandoned. Some of the remainder will be relatively healthy. But they do feed heavily and will require regular fertilization. Baronne Prevost, Mrs John Laing, and George Arends have all proven to produce interesting flowers in my own garden but each has required extensive pampering.
China roses when grown in zone 7 & 8 areas of less than 50% relative humidity are completely bulletprooof, but they will need regular feedings of organic fertilizer, and they don't like to grow directly atop lime or gypsum outcroppings. They probably fare well in more humid climates, too. A gardener in Arkansas reports that in a garden where every other rose is almost dead from blackspot despite an aggressive spray program, only the Banksian roses are disease-free.
Tea roses descend from China roses and R. gigantea, both thriving in humid climates, so one would expect that at least some Tea roses would thrive under the same conditions without disease problems. For the same reasons, one might expect the same from Noisettes. Of course, the devil is in the details; most of these roses were bred in slightly drier climes, so success is a product of diligence and chance.
Most polyanthas and miniatures are of easy culture. They descend from the weedy multifloras and wichuranas as do many of the old climbers and ramblers. Yet one must be careful when choosing climbers. Crimson Shower can suffer mightily from mildew and so can a number of direct descendents such as the popular Dorothy Perkins. Mildews of various kinds show up in a host of the most foliferous multiflora climbers. And there are garden writers of the early twentieth century who caution that wichuriana climbers be given adequate air circulation. Using care, one can find disease-resistant cultivars - Newport Fairy instead of DP. New Dawn and Barbier's climbers Albertine and siblings are good bets.
Shrub roses are the most profoundly mixed up of the bunch. As a group they are considerably more disease-resistant than any group but the Albas. But you can rarely get fragrance and remontance. For this you need to use Hybrid Musks. Or plant English roses.
English roses can suffer from fungal affliction, but most of the ones on the market get by without much intervention. Eglantyne and Abraham Darby are pretty tough.Floribundas and Hybrid Teas draw from so many lines that it is difficult to say. There are healthy varieties, but even among AARS winners are roses like Apollo of 1973 which gets an abysmal ARS rating of 4.7. Touch of Class, Marijke Koopman, Olympiad, and Silver Jubilee have pretty strong records
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