Here's the information on Fortuniana rootstock, from the Nelson's Florida Roses site. If you want old garden roses, they do work well, and are pretty disease resistant but have smaller flowers, and bloom less often than the hybrid tea roses grafted to Fortuniana.
https://nelsonsfloridaroses.co...
Don't be tempted by those cheap, bare root roses you will see at the box stores and grocery stores, they simply will not last in Florida. Nelson's and other good wholesale growers graft the best varieties to the Fortuniana rootstocks, so they don't have that many but what they sell are good ones. They're pricey but worth every penny.
I got a 'Tahitian Sunset' for my birthday this year, and it has bloomed almost non-stop since I got it. I've had to pot it up twice (not growing in-ground because the sunny areas of my yard change during the year and I need to be able to move them) It went from a little spindly 16in. bush to now over 7ft tall. One round of bloom had over 22 roses blooming at once!
All the roses I've grown do struggle a bit in the summer heat here, but then they come on strong again in fall, and bloom like crazy right through winter into spring again. I move mine to a spot with morning sun and afternoon shade in the summer so they aren't quite so stressed by the relentless heat and strong, blazing hot sun. Hot nights make the new growth a little spindly and the flowers smaller, too. I have an old bush of 'Gold Medal' that actually seems to go semi-dormant in summer. It's just ramping up to a second new flush of blooms now.
