Of the first group you mentioned, Love Song and Beverly are two of my favorite roses. Make sure you place Love Song where you can sniff the intoxicating perfume! That lavender color is really soft and beautiful, and blends well with companion plants. I planted white vinca and pink bubblegum petunias around it, and it was pretty all season. Beverly bloomed well into November.
My hedge of pink dbl Knock Outs is too tall, so I'm cutting it way back this spring. They bloom pretty much nonstop. A nursery near me prunes them and their carpet roses down to 6" each winter, and by midsummer, they are 3' tall and gorgeous.
This will be my first year to prune back any Austins for reasons other than winter dieback. I'm not seeing any dead canes this year, so I'm going to take out some of the bigger older canes, and do a little thinning. I'll shorten a few that are taller than me.
Temps are supposed to fall to 29 this weekend, so I may end up with some dieback after all, depending on how long the freeze lasts.
