Deep pink flowers with a boldly spicy scent, 25 to 30 petals each, on a plant that climbs to 6 feet and spreads 4. Rosa True Bloom® True Gratitude, PP28,929, grows in full sun, hardy to 10 below zero.
At six feet it trains easily up a pillar, an obelisk, or a fence panel without needing the structure a full-size climber demands. It won the Biltmore award in 2015.
True Bloom roses come from Ping Lim, the breeder behind the Easy Elegance line, who set out to cross hybrid tea roses with disease-resistant shrubs and get hybrid tea flowers on a plant that survives without a spray program. Two of them, True Passion and True Inspiration, were distinct enough that the program created a class for them: Hybrid Tea Shrub. They are grown on their own roots rather than grafted, so a plant killed back in a hard winter regrows as itself rather than reverting to rootstock, and there are no suckers from below a graft union. Most are hardy to 10 below zero, and high petal counts are the signature of the line.
Bloom repeats through the season. Tie the canes to the support as they grow rather than waiting until they stiffen.