Well I grow a lot of reds and can highly recommend Veterans Honor for beautiful form and long lasting blooms.

Ingrid Bergman is another favorite. She just plugs along blooming like crazy. Ingrid is lightly fragrant.

Crimson Glory smells wonderful and has a big beautiful dark red blooms.

Gypsy Soul is a lovely dark red that blooms like crazy.

One of the prettiest reds In my opinion is the smokey color of Hot Cocoa. It's a wonderful rose!

I grow Firefighter here in Phx area and it is a great rose here.

Firefighter‘s flowers fried quickly for us in Las vegas and Ingrid Bergman was a wimp as an own root but might have been good grafted. The best red here has been a grafted Dolly Parton whose blooms have really held up to the dry heat. we also have an own root velvet fragrance that looks promising and likes to bloom. Heres Dolly in hundred degree weather.

Kristine LeGault 8a pnw your Hot Cocoa is stunning. If I weren't so hooked on scent, I would buy her in an instant (after hunting for a deal, of course :)).

debbym, Tempe, AZ Zone 9 what do you like about Firefighter? Does it form a pretty bush?How is the fragrance? And would you describe it as a pinkish/bluish red? Or as an orangeish red?

mojavemaria I haven't heard of Dolly Parton! Yours is beautiful though. How would you describe her color and fragrance? And does she make a pretty bush?

Thank you 🙏

Mohave, ! Your Dolly Parton is glorious! I saw her picture at Palatine and considered grabbing her but hadn't heard anything about her. So good to hear that she does well for .

My Ingrid is grafted and is one of those roses that just goes along and minds her own beeswax. No disease and no frying in our triple digets.

Kristine LeGault 8a pnw - Where do you live? I assumed pnw meant Pacific Northwest. Your Ingrid blooms are lovely.

I meant to ask you earlier about Veterans Honor. How do you like the fragrance and look of him/her?

I have Veteran's Honor as own-root for the past 5 years. No scent, unless it's aged in the vase for 5 days in my alkaline tap water at pH 9, then it has a very slight cherry scent.

I don't like Veteran's Honor, too few petals compared to Firefighter, but the bush always has blooms. One bloom of Firefighter can perfume the entire room, but Veteran's Honor bloom is like plastic, no scent.

Veteran's Honor is more heat-tolerant than Firefighter, but both has LESS PETALS at 100 F heat, for that reason I prefer zillion-petals Austin that can take high heat like The Squire.

Crimson Glory became single petals in our 100 F summer heat, plus bush gets mildew.

Roses that last for 5+ days in the vase like Veteran's Honor or the Squire DO NOT FRY in the heat due to their firm petals. Below is Veteran's Honor, good for landscape bush since it always has blooms.

Below is The Squire, very drought-tolerant as 8th-year own root since it has deep roots, blooms last forever on the bush, petals are firm and don't fry at 100 F like other red Austins roses. Rouge Royal fries in the heat, but the Squire doesn't:

The Squire is one of dozen of older Austin varieties that I root & sell to donate to charities. The Squire has a spicy old rose scent if the soil & water is alkaline. I have rock hard & alkaline clay:

The Dark Lady can take heat only up to 90 F like Firefighter, but NOT to 100 F heat like The Squire and Veteran's Honor. Below is The Dark Lady at 90 F heat. Note that Comte de Chambord next to it is fried to brown blooms, but the Dark Lady blooms still look good.

I hang out with Pakistan rosarians in Facebook group. Roses that thrive in their 121 F heat can survive my zone 5a winters & hot summer. Pakistan rosarians' favorite reds are Austin roses since regular hybrid teas become single petals in extreme heat.

Rouge Royale, Ascot, and Munstead Wood do very well for me in the high desert. They are all in full sun. Diane

Mohave, I am Pacific Northwest but the very southwest of Oregon . July and August are triple digets and dry.

My husband bought me Ingrid Bergman because of the wonderful raspberry fragrance. It must be our soil because some people smell nothing from Ingrid.

I'm glad that Diane brought up Munstead wood. What a fabulous rose. Healthy, fragrant and never any disease for me and the blooms are nonstop.

Crimson Glory bush is gorgeous but it gets afternoon

Munstead wood

Munstead

Crimson Glory

My Munstead Wood's blooms fried in dry heat at 100 F, I had to move it to partial shade.

Below was when it's in full-sun, blooms shattered in a few days:

Then I moved it to partial shade, and Munstead's blooms last much longer. Vase life is a good indication of heat-tolerance, except for Rouge Royal which fries at above 95 F. Munstead Wood lasts 3 days in the vase, Crimson Glory lasts 3 days, The Dark Lady lasts 4 days, and Veteran's Honor and The Squire both last 5 days. Firefighter lasts 5 days but petals and leaves burn in hot sun at 100 F. Firefighter does better in partial shade like Munstead Wood, see below:

Below Firefighter is a constant bloomer as 1st-year own-root in only 5 hours of morning sun. The scent is more powerful than Munstead Wood. One bloom of Firefighter can perfume the entire room.

Munstead turns pink in hot weather in our 3 mos. of 90+ temperatures. i suggest another Austin, Darcey Bussell, which grows up to 7’ in summer and never stops blooming. Fragrance lighter than Munstead’s, but still detectable even in under 30% humidity.

Agree on Darcey Bussell as constant blooming and prettier bush than Munstead Wood. It died through my zone 5a winter, and I miss it. It had a light & pleasant scent. The color was nicer than Munstead Wood. My own-root Darcey Bussell was round & compact at 2' x 2'.

I have to come to the defense of Munstead Wood, one of my top 3 roses in our high, dry heat. The summer of 2022 set all time heat records from June into October. Munstead is a continuous bloomer in this heat and stands up to it well, keeping a good color and not burning up. Bear with me as I post a month by month pictorial of what this rose looks like from early June until November. Diane

June 7

July 1

Aug 7

Sept 30

Oct 15

Whoops, here's Oct 15

Sorry for the mess up. Both above are Oct 15 same rose.

And my favorite of all, Munstead after multiple frosts, still hanging on Nov 18

One thing to remember, for even hot dry climates up north, the sun is just not as intense as further south, even if it is hot and dry. I grew up in Phoenix and later lived in Tuscon for wew (sorry, Houzz typo) 13 years. The sun in southern Arizona is strong and many plants that do fine in the sunny heat further north need afternoon shade in Arizona. When I moved up north I had to learn how to garden all over again. Stuff th t grew fine in the shade in southern Arizona needs full sun here.

librarian_gardner_8b_pnw Also soil type plays a factor. Diane's Sept. 30 picture features perfect lush & green lawn, but my lawn looked like hell on Sept. 30 (brown and dried up from dry early fall). I have rock-hard clay.

Southern exposure is harsh on roses, even in my Northern Chicago. Our patio faces south and anytime it's above 90 F, the heat was so intense that I burnt my fingers while touching a metal scoop in hot sun. So I never leave my garden scoops out in full-sun.

Another time the heat melted the plastic wheel from our barbecue-stand outside. In the summer I always have a piece of cloth to open my sliding patio door, the metallic handle burns my finger.

One summer it was so hot that I had to wear a hat when going outside, that's when I planted a bunch of trees for shade.

We irrigate the yard. Our desert soil isn't very good. It's the sod and the irrigation. If we didn't have a sprinkler system and drip system, we'd be sitting on sagebrush, cheat grass, goatheads, wild invasive grasses and dirt. We averaged 95-105 for about three months every day. Please do not make assumptions about my nice green yard. Diane

This is out back in the gully a few years back when our community hired goats to eat down the brush which is always a fire hazard. This is what my yard would look like without a sprinkler system.

The brush you see is just a few feet beyond my back yard. No nice green lawn. Diane

Thank you all so much for your feedback! I've heard from locals that David Austin roses struggle here in Phoenix. I have 2 Desdemonas and a Benjamin Britten that I'm going to monitor for a few years... In the meantime, I'm going to see if I can check out Firefighter, Chrysler Imperial, and Dolly Parton in person. :) Thanks again!

Ok, here's my current plan: on the western wall of my backyard, under the shade of young-ish Chinese Elms, I'm going to try for an ombre effect of roses; from north to south, Cramoisi Superieur, Firefighter/Chrysler Imperial (TBD), Dolly Party, and Fragrant Cloud. Thank you all SO MUCH for your help this past week. And of course, if you see this and think WTF!?!?, let me know. :)

It is going to be gorgeous. I can't wait to see your pictures as it progresses

I wish you could put Dolly Parton in a separate area, Carrie. I saw her once at RVRs and she just jumped out at me. She did not blend in.

I would love to hear about your plumeria. I cannot get them to grow here. What is your secret. Is this wall facing east? I love Fragrant Cloud! My firefighter is more bluish-red I think. Not orangish red, like Fragrant Cloud.

Sheila z8a Rogue Valley OR- thanks for the feedback! I will noodle on this some more. :)

debbym, Tempe, AZ Zone 9- So far I only have one in the ground, but I've got several that I've rooted in pots. I'm VERY careful about watering them--I use a watering stick to make sure they're just about dry before watering again--and I keep the pots on the eastern edge of my covered patio, so they get *only* morning sun in the summer. I also water between St. Patrick's Day and Thanksgiving, and otherwise leave them be. I'll check on them 1x per month this winter to make sure they don't need a sip of water, but that's about it.

I'm going to plant the Dwarf Singapore Pink north of the Chinese Elm this spring so that it gets some morning sun but otherwise filtered shade in the summer. Christine Barrueta has a gorgeous one in a similarly protected site: https://www.writeonrubee.com/grow/2016/growing-dwarf-singapore-pink-plumeria-in-phoenix-arizona. (And yes, that wall faces east.)

And here's a website that I found that I'm basically trying to follow with my plumeria: http://www.paliplumies.com/plumerias.html. 

Thanks for letting me know about Firefighter's coloring! I think Fragrant Cloud is the most beautifully fragrant rose I've had the opportunity to smell so far. I took a blossom of America, Twilight Zone, and Fragrant Cloud to my son's class party and made the moms sniff them. 😆 Everyone agreed that Fragrant Cloud is the best of the lot.

When you say your elms are young does that mean they don't completely shade the area? I ask because against a west facing wall is the last place Id put a rose bush in the desert Southwest. Not only is the afternoon sun the hardest on a non desert plant but the wall reflects even more heat.

Hopefully your trees provide a lot of shade but away from walls and afternoon sun would be the safest bet. And I agree with Sheila that the coral red of dolly might look off next to the cool red of firefighter. just MHO

This comment has nothing to do with growing roses in an ultra-hot climate. Regarding the clashing of reds, I have to say that the combo of Trumpeter (orange-ish red) with Lavaglut (dark red) is one of my very favorites. I discovered it accidentally when they were both new-ish in pots on my driveway. Now I'll always have them together.

There is something about Dolly Parton I thought was so unique that I did not think it would group well, but I have Rosarium Uetersen next to Cadenza and I agree the bright colors can look good together.

I could be wrong.

Thank you all so much for the feedback! I like the sound of Ingrid Bergman, Lavaglut, or Hot Cocoa, so I'm wondering either could serve as a "transition" color between the warmer reds (e.g. Dolly) and the cooler reds (e.g. Firefighter). Would that work, Kristine LeGault 8a pnwandsusan9santabarbara?

Alternatively, I could do something like Double Delight in between...

I have not seen Dolly in person but I have Hot Cocoa and it might look pretty cool together. Double Delight is always a safe choice and a really beautiful rose.

As Im thinking about it I don't think that I have any orange reds other than Hot Cocoa and it isn't by other reds. But with some Perennials as a buffer that will help transition colors.

The blues of hardy geraniums or catmint are excellent between colors that might not look quite right with each other. Lavender ans russian sage also work

Good idea! I can do fernleaf lavender here. I may try asparagus fern too/instead.

Carrie, lavender and rosemary would both be great Az desert choices, askingasking (Houzz 😑) along with various salvias (purple ones especially). These were all great performers when I gardened in Phoenix and TucsonTucson. Penstemons are also wonderful spring blooming desert rose garden companions

I agree, Librarian. Just above the last photo I posted, and right behind the brush, are about 9 lavender plants growing in this hot and full sun location. I never water them, though they might get a few sprinkles that trickle down from the main flower bed. They have wonderful drainage along there, but there isn't much need for drainage. And rosemary loves it here, growing into a big perennial shrub. Diane

My grandmother's best Rose in Indio was Chrysler Imperial. Huge bush!

Carla in Sac