I have tried a few, but most didn't make it. If they survive at all, there is lots of dieback. I am lucky to get a few blooms a season.

I continue to baby my own root Tiffany rose. I got a couple of blooms last year. I was tempted to pick up a couple of $5 body bag roses just to have blooms!

Zuzu is going to tell me that hybrid teas do better grafted! I think I'll try a couple of hybrid teas from a Canadian nursery next spring if there are any that perform well for people in colder climates like me!

My mother grew hybrid teas in Massachusetts with great success (but she grew everything with great success). She just dumped all the leaves raked up in the fall into the rose garden for winter protection.

I grow HTs here in a 5b garden successfully. Over the years I've lost a handful to winter kill and had to prune them quite low this spring after a very cold winter but they are looking great. I don't do anything about winter protection.

Paul grows gorgeous roses, and I'm sure they're all grafted, Andi. Own-root hybrid teas don't even do their best in zone 9, so they'd be a bad investment in lower zones. If you have trouble overwintering them, just buy some of the $5 ones you're seeing and think of them as annuals.

Here's an article by Paul. Look at the photos of his roses. Stunning!

http://garden.org/ideas/view/P...

Andi, you might try 'Distant Drums'. it's not really a hybrid tea, but it kind of looks like one ...kinda..and it's really hardy!
We;re technically in zone 6 here, and i grow Mr. Lincoln, Chrysler Imperial, Olympiad, oklahoma, Charlotte Armstrong, Elle, Elizabeth Taylor, Double Delight, Brandy, Just Joey, Angel Face, Apricot Nectar, Firefighter, Kordes Perfecta, Neptune, John F Kennedy, Pope John Paul II, Fragrant Cloud, Tropicana, Nicole, Tiffany, Memorial Day, the McCartney rose, Black Baccara, Christian Dior, Opening Night, Love, Falling in Love, Electron, First Prize, Gemini, New Zealand, Perfume Delight, Aromatherapy, Pink Promise, Sheer Bliss, Sonia, Bella'roma, Cherry Parfait, and a few more... having said all that, i am surprised at the number i found on my spreadsheets! I would have guessed i only had 8 or so because I do not like HTs because of the maintenance. These are actually some of my favorite roses!
I don't feed or spray. I've grown many more than this list, but they've either died or looked so bad that I removed them.
Our weather is far more extreme than yours, and we don't get any snow cover most winters. I mulch a couple of inches, but that's it.
Hopefully that will reassure you, because most on my list are still readily available.

edited to take off a few floribundas...

I'll have to try Distant Drums. I am thrilled with Buck's Honey Sweet. It is classified as a shrub, but its form and blooms look hybrid tea like. My Honey Sweet is own root from Chamblees. I definitely want to grow more Buck roses. Chamblees added some that are new to commerce recently.

It helps to know which hybrid teas do well for people. It gives me a good place to start.

The new place has some gently sloping hills, so I can put plants like my irises and grafted roses in spots with better drainage. I suspect winter wet is grafted roses main problem in my level, poorly draining, clay soil. We get rapid cycling freeze-thaw in February and March where the ground freezes solid and thaws to soggy mud daily. I also have what i believe will be a sunny but protected area for borderline hardy plants. I will have a better idea of my options once I move in and start digging.

Any hybrid tea would look puny next to my huge, healthy Austins and shrub roses!

Puny? Did you look at Paul's photos?

I have a hybrid tea that has excelled here. It is Lafter - an appealing apricot/yellow blend - and it dwarfs most of my shrub roses now standing about 8' tall and equally wide. I have given up type-casting roses.

His are gorgeous, zuzu, but mine were puny their second year. If they survived the winter at all, I had tons of die back even with winter protection. I realize other people grow hybrid tea roses in similar climates. I obviously picked the wrong ones from the wrong places.

He also doesn't get blackspot or japanese beetles. OMG, wouldn't that be wonderful!

William Shakespeare 2000 is my only grafted rose. He is puny also, but other people have that problem with him. I like the blooms, so I keep him around. He has two surviving canes and had three blooms so far. I potted him up today. I had to tie the canes to bamboo to keep them from toppling over. What a diva! Abraham Darby only had one bloom so far, but he has really long canes. He must be gearing up to impress me with something fantastic. Neither are hybrid teas, I know.

I don't expect hybrid teas to outperform my shrubs and Austins. I just want to be able to put a fragrant, beautiful rose in a bud vase. i don't need a dozen, just one at a time!

Andi - As you know, I'm zone 5 and I have lots & lots & LOTS of roses, but my best ones are all floribundas or grandifloras. Those aren't acceptable? Melodee Parfume, Sheila's Perfume, Mardi Gras.. those I have, have the traditional "rose" look, and survive my zone without batting an eye. Those 3 I just listed are about 3-5 ft tall already for the season and had very little winterkill on them.

Those are great also. I just want to add a few cutting roses next year and want to try ones that work well for other cold zone gardeners.Varieties that survive the winter would be best, but I may just pick up some budget body bags early in the season and treat them as annuals. I would like to have fragrant, classic blooms for bud vases.

I think I will have more success with grafted roses if I have a protected spot with good drainage. My current garden is flat, wet, and exposed to winter winds. My hardy shrubs don't mind, but the divas die.

RosesAreRed lives nearby. She has great success with grafted roses in her gorgeous garden. Most of her plants are in raised bed plantings. I can't afford to haul in a lot of dirt/potting medium, but I think I can carve out a good space for a cutting garden on a gentle slope with amended soil. [FYI, A couple of bags of manure are a big deal to haul in the grumpymobile. Winston the pug is not allowed to ride along because he sheds - and he likes Winston!] I hope to start driving again soon, at least locally.

I see many roses all over my home town growing in yards where they get care and some that get no attention at all. Some are 10+ feet tall and probably have never been pruned and are never fertilized. various growing conditions but they are bursting with bloom. My roses are all grafted. I like classic form also and fragrance.

Andi, I'd be blaming the freeze/thaw and poor drainage situation much more than the roses for your problems. Zone 6 is not terribly cold for most roses. My aunt and grandmother grew famous roses in Regina, Saskatchewan for years. I think it is zone 4, but it may be 3. But no rose is going to thrive in poor drainage, and unprotected from freezing and thawing. When you move, get a truckload of compost to build up (up!!) a nice bed before you plant your roses again. They will do great, no matter what kind they are. Don't know about where you live, but here, compost is free from the local landfill and it's excellent.

Rose breeders graft onto more robust rootstocks to make their grafted hybrids stronger and more disease resistant. I can't imagine that very many own-root roses would be better than some of the HT's I grew. The breeders also graft onto rootstocks that bloom more often than the own-root roses. Used to be a bloom cycle every 6 weeks was good, but now we have types that bloom almost constantly.

In Florida now, but I lived up the road from Paul in Salt Lake City for 20 years and grew fabulous HT roses with no great amount of sweat or maintenance. I did fertilize them in spring, keep them well watered through summer, and prune them in late winter, but that's about all. We had terrible clay soil there, too. I amended the bed before planting with a whole bunch of compost, and top dressed the bed a few times over the 20 years, I'm guessing.

Let's see, I had Tropicana, a couple of Double Delights, French Lace (maybe that's a floribunda?), Brandy, John F. Kennedy, a gorgeous red that was bred from Chrysler Imperial but I've forgotten the name, Peace, Pascali and a really great yellow one, again forgot the name. Plus a bunch of floribundas, a climber and Queen Elizabeth grandiflora that was 12ft. tall and wide. They all would start out about 2ft. in spring, and by fall would be 5 to 6ft. tall and 4ft. or more wide. I'd often get 4 bloom cycles in a season, unless there was a cold spring or a very early fall frost. One fall I had roses blooming in December!