Roses

The previous owners of my house planted a lot of roses.  Also a lot of Japanese holly (blech).  Anyway, many of the roses didn't make it through last years summer.  I think they were A) planted too closely together, B) not particularly hardy for this climate and C) not repeat bloomers and D) they had no scent.  My philosophy with roses is they must repeat bloom all season and have a nice scent, otherwise you just have a bunch of thorny canes growing most of the year, not very attractive.  So any roses that looked like the wouldn't make it or didn't have the above attributes were pulled up.  That has left some beautiful wild possibly rugosa roses with a great scent, a scent free Knockout rose, an orange rose that blooms fairly well but also had no scent, and a lovely Queen Elizabeth rose, likewise no scent.  Plus a few that I cannot name that look alright but don't smell like anything.  Last spring I planted a Zepherine Drouhin climbing which is a real winner in my book.  It blooms repeatedly, smells like rose heaven and has NO thorns.  I will have to gradually replace the older roses with winners like the ZD and other old garden roses.  Black spot be damned, I will have my roses!