Your selection of rose varieties really determines your success or failure with roses. One of the few rose producers that provides specific information on how their roses perform in different climates, Weeks Roses, makes it a breeze for budding rose gardeners to choose plants that will be easy to grow in their very own yards. Hybrid tea roses, for example, are more susceptible to the raves of winter. Most varieties will over winter in cold climates, but only with lots of winter protection. But more casual rose growers may find the own-root bush roses easier to cope with.
Some roses just hate the cold, no matter how hard a gardener tries.
The wonderful greenish-yellow hybrid tea, St. Patrick, is an annual in the North, but it loves humid heat and will astound a southern gardener with huge, perfect flowers on long, sturdy stems. Roses with many petals perform better where summers are dry, and many of the heritage roses need a cool period to set buds. In northern climates, many of the hardy shrubs delight rose gardeners. The yellow, red, pink and orange shrub, Flutterbye, rewards northern gardeners with tons of bloom all season long. But the truly fabulous white climber, Sally Holmes, which grows to 15 feet in California, needs some protection in New England, where it grows to about 5 feet.