Aesthetic advice please - roses...

[AthelstaneTheUnready]

I'm hoping someone with a stronger sense of style than mine can help out!

I have an 1840's/50's, gothic'y window, stone house, painted cream. I desperately want some roses to grow up the front - the entire front is covered with very old-fashioned pegs so something has clearly been grown there before.

Having no taste myself, I'm worried I'm thinking of overdoing it. There are 4 equally distanced places across the front I could put a rose, and I'm thinking of using all of them:

Mme A Carriere - tall, left side of house (cream)
Malvern Hills - not so tall, left side of door (yellow)
Bathsheba - not so tall, right side of door (apricot)
R. Rector - tall, right side of house (white)

Are 4 different types just too busy for one front? Should I only have 1, or maybe 2? Will these choices just disappear against a cream background?

Ideally I'd love a strongly scented, red or scarlet, climber or rambler, but those don't seem to exist.

Is it a hands-in-the-air-horror idea to grow against a painted wall, for maintenance reasons?

This is the first time I've owned my own house with a garden, and the absolute freedom to do whatever is paralysing me!

(which have similar seedheads, btw, not being totally random)

We got altissimo as one of a set this winter to grow through the newly laid hedges. Blood red but not scented. Can't say much about thuggishness yet, it's still about 6 inches high!

(DS chose that)

I recommend banksii lutea which is a rambler with small pale yellow pom pom roses all over and flowers earlier than most others, but only once. It doesnt have thorns, takes a little while to get going then goes mad!

I have read about putting up a frame so the whole frame can be taken down with plant attached. I’ve never tried it, I’ve never lived in a house with paint

Old fashioned white and red? Have a look at Rosa Mundi. White and red stripes. Ive got it on my north wall.

“Vulgar” just means they are bright/contrasting/pure shade. To be “tasteful” you require muted/complex colours (apricot not orange) which are only slightly different from the neighbouring ones. Or you are allowed white and purple together, or lime green and blue. I’d stick with “vulgar” if I were you.

When you say you don’t like clematis, do you mean the big starfish like flowers? Try Clematis alpina - deep blue bell flowers sometimes with contrasting white stamens. Or the orange autumn flowering ones - tangutica?