My favorites have lots of petals and smell divine. Unfortunately, a huge percentage of those don't perform very well here. Roses for my garden need to survive northern winters and southern heat and humidity. There was a time when my answer would have been Austin roses, and if I lived somewhere else that might be the case, but here most Austins behave like an OGR that later gets lots of blackspot and occasionally spits out a pitiful summer bloom or two. My current answer is Kordes roses- they seem to like Kentucky! And lots have that full petaled, old rose look, and quite a few are fragrant.
I should add, if I sprayed, it would probably be a different story, but I'm not into using chemicals.
