I do have some HTs but generally I do not prefer to have HTs. I have lots and lots of Floribundas because I really love them. I like the look of masses of flowers the way a floribunda looks verses the one rose on a stem general look of a HT. And I also have roses that are lumped into the shrub rose catagory. Many that are clements roses and many of the Jackson and Perkins roses they call shrub roses. I guess there is no other catagory that they fit into? But these are not the landscape type roses that I think of as most easy care, but fancy flowering roses that go with all the others here.

Of course, I do always spray (systemic) for blackspot as I can't stand to see anything but shiney healthy green leaves. And the weather here is not prone to any big temperature swings. Just very humid in the summer. Plus usually we get enough rain that I don't need to water but there are exceptions. I rarely loose a rose overwinter. The soil when I started out was not too great but I always dug a nice hole for each rose bush that I backfilled with compost and peat moss. I have put compost over the entire rose beds and always keep them thickly mulched. That means thru the years the earthworms have come and deffinately improved the soil.

Rita - Case in point. Monday for me was 80 degrees. Wednesday we had 8" of snow. Long Island doesn't have those extremes.

Rita, your good cultural practices and their results are both inspirational and instructional. Adding organic material and attracting earthworms seems to be important everywhere. Here, organic material burns off quickly. I guess I need to work to get bark mulch down annually.

I think you are right about shrub roses. A number of times I have read classification systems for roses where they basically say that shrub roses are roses whose heritage is complicated and whose characteristics do match those of other rose classes. Shrub roses preceded the Knockout brand. They were not as popular, but they were just about as durable. I was very happy with Sally Holmes, for example, which shared many of the best characteristics of Knockout which it grew beside in my NJ garden.

Toni, good thing Long Island doesn't get temperature swings like that. My poor garden couldn't deal with it!

Steve, I am a very, very big believer in mulch. Mulch keeps the soil cooler in the hot summer weather and keeps the moisture in the soil. It breaks down and therefore eventually feeds the soil. Earthworms only help. I have earthworms everywere here in my garden. Not only in my rose beds but all over the garden as just about everything is heavily mulched.

Mulch is magic. I take very minimal care of my roses but I do mulch them heavily with anything and everything organic. It has saved them from the dreadful drought that we have had this year as I am not able to water many of them.