I will be growing it in zone 5-6, but people in other zones may be interested as well. I have been looking at Lagerfeld for a while, but a friend killed 3 of them, so I am leery. I noticed Buck's Blue Skies. I grew Blue Moon as a grafted body bag rose one year. I loved the blooms and fragrance, but it didn't survive the winter. If I got good at rooting roses or found it on its own roots, I would consider trying again.

Ah, a person right after my own heart!!

I *love* the Lavenders/Blues. I have Blue Girl, Blueberry Hill, Enchanted Evening, and Lagerfeld right now. I also have Outta the Blue, Purple Passion, Intrigue, Heirloom, Paradise, Paradise Found, Kordes Perfecta, Barbara Streisand, Stainless Steel...

I'm getting in Blue Skies, Rhapsody in Blue, Shocking Blue, Stephen's Big Purple, .. uh.. can't think right now. I'm on the lookout for Moonlight Magic.

My two Lagerfelds came from Home Depot and they've done magnificently! And, you can't be colder than myself. Trick is to MULCH MULCH MULCH! Blue Girl is the bluest of all of them, personally, Enchanted Evening is a blooming idiot, Blueberry Hill is a fun little rose. Intrigue smells like heaven, Outta the Blue has a gorgeous inner color (it practically glows), Purple Passion is also a "glowing" rose. Paradise & Kordes Perfecta are nice, but I cannot wait for Paradise Found, which is supposed to be the gorgeousness of Paradise, but with a scent! Stainless Steel I'm waiting to see if it performs better this year.. last year it was sooo wet that everyone didn't do well.

Hope this gives you some ideas? Here's one of my Lagerfelds.

Your Lagerfeld looks really nice. Have you had troubled with blackspot and other diseases with that one?

I have been looking at the Chamblees list, currently trying to narrow my selections down for the coop. I am looking at ebb tide, wild blue yonder, silver shadows and blue skies. I also like Mme. Isaac Pereire, a magenta rose. I have seen pictures of tuscany, but never the real rose. Austin's the prince looks similar in some photos, pink in others.

http://www.rdrop.com/~paul/gal...
http://www.rdrop.com/~paul/aus...

Are your Home Depot roses grafted? I have killed so many grafted roses that I am going own root. I have troubles with the freeze thaw splitting the grafts, although I had them planted quite deep. (As deep as the bf was willing to dig, given the amount of rocks, with the graft at least 8-12" below the surface plus winter mulch.) We have been having a lot of "wintery mix" winters, with weather alternating above and below freezing for weeks. I suspect that it is very hard on the grafts.

I am having much more success with purple morning glories, Star of Yelta. I grow them on a trellis against the building behind the rose garden.

Pretty much almost 100% of all my roses are grafted w/o any problem. It seems kind of amazing that the graft point being a foot deep that anything would grow.. And considering we can have 60+ degree weather one day, drops down to -15 that night, and then 2 foot of snow the next day, and back up to 50 the 3rd day, if that's not alternating weather, I don't know what is.

Here in CO, we don't have a lot of problems with slugs, blackspot, etc. Why? NO water. We're a very arid environment here and we don't have a lot of nasty problems with things like that like people who live in nicer areas have.

I'd be a lot more curious as to how deep they're being buried. That just strikes me as weird that you're having that kind of problem if you're burying them that deep. I'm not sure where Joanna is as far as posting, but she lives in Canada and she's a zone 3 and doesn't have that many problems.

Can you post any pics of your plants?

The own root ones are doing well, so I am sticking to those. I don't know if I have pictures of the ones that died. At the moment, I am changing hard drives. I have all my pictures archived, I will post some when I find them. I am using the bf's old notebook computer while sitting here changing disks and installing programs on my machine.

Another problem may be underground rocks. They call this are "the slate belt." You can't dig a hole without hitting a rock. I always fill holes first to check for drainage. This time of year, there is lots of standing water and mud which freezes over at night, thaws but doesn't have time to drain away and freezes again. I frequently have deep rocks that prevent water from draining. I had one rose that I moved to another location in the same bed. It wasn't growing well where it was, but doubled in size in the new location.

The grafted roses were body bag roses on sale, so I may not be judging them well. I killed two peace roses, one Tiffany (replaced it with an own root which is doing well and showing buds), Blue Girl, and a couple of others.

Ah, OK, I understand the slate problems. Where I lived as a teenager was in the southern Rocky Mountains of NM and we lived on slate. I know whatcha mean there!

And I love the "body bag roses"!!! That's hilarious!

If the "body bag" roses aren't dead already, I am sure to kill them!

If there weren't so many rocks and trees here, we would have slid off the mountain into the river long ago.

I think I will try Silver Shadows and Lagerfeld from Chamblees. I was considering Blue Skies, but it got negative hmf reviews for blackspot and weak growth from people in California and Texas, one of whom recommended Lagerfeld instead. ! If they are having troubles, what about me? Since it is a Buck rose, it may like the cold better. It is on my "research more before digging a hole" list.

If Lagerfeld survives, I will have to find Yves St Laurent to keep him company. I think it is the most beautiful pink rose I have ever seen!

Andi, I agree with Toni that Blue Girl is the bluest of them all, and it's available from lots of own-root nurseries.

I do have a Lady X that's even bluer, but it's an old grafted plant and I've never seen an own-root Lady X that looked good. It's one of those roses that doesn't grow well on its own roots.

Here's Blue River. I think it's one of the prettiest of all the "blue" roses.

I tried to get Lady X from R.U. this year, but I think they lost their base stock of her, so I can't get her from them. I'll just have to wait. :(

That Blue River is very nice!

I kick myself that the only awesome bloom I got off of my Blue Girl last year I gave to my M-i-L (I made a beautiful bouquet of Common Purple, Mount Bakker, & Charles Joly lilacs & my only wonderful Blue Girl blossom in the center.. smelled up the car!!) and never took a picture. It's not B.G.'s fault.. none of my roses in the back did well w/the rain & yuck we had last year. Hoping this year will be better!!! I know that she's the happiest rose in the SW corner of my yard.. I put 13 roses back there and she never lost her green this winter! I'm kinda watching my poor Barbara Streisand, that was never a strong rose. I *do* have green under all the mulch, so I may have to be a little harsh when it comes to spring pruning.

Blue River is very pretty. I will have to read more about it. Eventually, I will have another blue girl. I see it everywhere grafted, so I am sure I can find it own root. I will try my hand at rooting roses again when I do my spring pruning. I would feel better about risking a grafted sale rose if I knew I could root it. Most of my roses are starting to bud and many are green under the mulch. It has been warm this week, hope we have an early spring! At least I hope spring isn't as cold and damp as last year.

Speaking of blue roses, Regan Nursery just sent me a notice that they're mailing Macho Man to me, Toni, so don't look for one of those for me at your local Lowe's this year.

i love my lady x. it had no dieback at all this yr. i also love nimbus but it is still small.

Lavender is not my favorite color in roses. But my favorite is deffinately PERFUME PERFECTION. Second choice would be BLUEBERRY HILL.

I had Lagerfeld and got rid of it as it was very weak stemmed for me and wanted to be taller than the roof no matter how much I cut it back each spring. Had another commonly grown florabunda (not mentioned in this thread) name of which I am drawing a blank on that I also got ride of for doing poorly and replaced with BLUEBERRY HILL.

I'm also throwing in "Fragrant Plum" into the mix of the lavender/mauve roses. Sweetness and Lavender Simplicity are two more that I'm on the lookout for.

Angel Face. Angel Face is the lavender I couldn't remember the name of before in the other thread above.

This rose, a polyantha climber, "Excellenz von Schubert", isn't really purple or lavender...and hardly "blue"...most would probably call it "lilac".
Very fragrant, disease resistant, and vigorous.