It is confusing. When I say that for me they "struggle" what I mean is this: they all seem to have different"issues". Let's see now...
1) Modern cultivars like "Hommage a Soupert et Notting" , "Florence Ducher", and "Charles XII" all seem to grow pretty well as plants ,but have trouble flowering; they produce only bull-heads and proliferated, stunted blooms. Florence was a bit better last spring after I worked on the soil. Hommage was planted too deeply so a cane was starting to root; I dug it up and put it in a pot. Charles has been in a pot for a year, has grown a lot but not even one bud. Now, to be clear,I don't have good garden soil, and am still in the process of learning how to improve what I do have...but many other roses of other types seem to be able to be reasonably happy,so is it just that these Bourbons all happened to be unlucky, planted in worse conditions than these other non-Bourbons???
2) Mme Isaac Pereire #2 just doesn't grow. Zephirine Drouhin is a bit better, but gives the impression of "growing backwards"; i.e., the plants never seem to make real progress; they start looking a little better at one point, but after a few months seem to be right back where they started. Again,they same thing about the soil does apply,also I have so many roses and my garden is so big that I never manage to keep up with cultivating, fertilizing, etc.But other varieties seem to handle these conditions graciously...
Note that disease does not seem to be a particular issue.
