“A goal without a plan is just a wish.â€
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Roses are the ‘Diva’ of the flower world. Statistics say you want roses is your garden. One of the most often searched plant is the rose. Before you head out to garden centers to buy roses here’s an easy guide to what rose classifications mean. Here’s a few rose winners to look for. Rose bushes are a big investment. Decide what you want to achieve with roses before you buy.
An Easy To Love |Â Easy To Grow | Rose Garden
85% of folks say roses are their favorite flower. They want easy-to-grow roses. Rose breeders are listening to YOU! Each year there are better, minimal care roses available that you can have great success with. Here are some Weeks Roses, Meilland Roses, Kordes Roses, and Conard Pyle Star Roses that I’ve personally grown and can vouch for. Some roses I list below have won at the Biltmore Rose Trials. You can also see videos on my Gaga’s Garden Facebook page. They are included because of their disease resistance, ease of care, beauty and fragrance. I can vouch for their high degree of success in my Illinois and Texas gardens. A side note on one of my new favorite roses: World famous hybridizer, Christian Bédard told a highly reliable friend of mine that the hybrid tea ‘Pretty Lady Rose’ may be the best rose he’s ever bred. I can tell you its at the top of my list for true perfection.
Modern Rose Classifications
Hybrid Tea | Grandiflora Rose | America’s Favorite Flower
Hybrid tea roses are perfect for any rose garden.*
- Hybrid tea roses are ideal for cut flowers and creating your own bouquets
- A hybrid tea is easily identifiable by its large, shapely 30-50 petal blooms on long stems
- Grandiflora roses bear clusters of full size roses, the 1st was ‘Queen Elizabeth’ in 1954
Here are some true winners:
Weeks Roses 2nd in their The Downton Abbey Series | ‘Pretty Lady Rose’ New 2016 Description:
- Dark even rose pink almost fuchsia
- 4-5 “ Large old fashioned ruffled petals
- The smell of peonies with a hint of spices
‘Francis Meilland’ hybrid tea rose, winner of Biltmore International Rose Trials ‘Pauline Merrell Award for Best Hybrid Tea Rose 2015’
‘Francis Meilland’ 1996 Description:
- Color: Very large shell pink flowers
- Winter hardy disease resistant
- Winner of Biltmore International Rose Trials ‘Best Hybrid Tea’
- Videoed and rated by me for the American Rose Society Web site
- Strong fruity and citrusy fragrance
Award of Excellence Best Established Rose
‘Queen Elizabeth’ First Grandiflora 1954 Description:
- Pink 4†with large petals, and pointed buds
- Moderate rose fragrance
- ‘Best Established’ Rose at The 2015 Biltmore International Rose Trials, I was a rose judgeÂ
Floribundas | Polyantha
- Floribundas are known for large clusters of flowered trusses & rapid bloom cycles
- They bear flowers in large clusters and trusses in a profusion of bloomÂ
- This class is unrivaled for providing massive colorful lasting garden displaysÂ
- Floribundas are hardier, more easy care & reliable in wet weather than their HT counterparts
- Polyanthas are smaller but very sturdy plants with large clusters of small masses of blooms
‘Bolero’ Description:
- White, large blooms with 100 petals
- Old rose and spicy fragrance
- Bushy and about 3 feet tall
‘Julia Child’ by Weeks Roses featured this shot of ‘Julia Child’ in The American Rose Society 2014 Calendar
‘Julia Child’ Description:
- One of the top selling roses in the world
- Butter/gold yellow in color, medium very full 3-4†blooms
- Strong licorice fragrance
‘Easy Does It’ In The Illinois Garden
‘Easy Does It’ Description:
- Gorgeous Mango Peach
- Ever blooming with a moderate fragrance
- Disease resistant, one of my all time favorites!Â
For Hedge and Borders | Shrub Rose| English Roses
- Shrub roses grow in a sprawling direction from 5 to 15 feet in every direction based on your climate and growing condition
- The unique group of English roses hybridized by David Austin Roses belong to this class of shrub roses.
- Recurrent bloomers, often have wonderful fragrance of Old Garden Roses
‘Water Colors Home Run’ by Weeks Roses Description:
- 3 colors showy flame red | yellow gold pink blush | Hot Pink
- Medium height and bloom size
- Winter hardy and disease resistant
‘Bonica’ Beautiful prolific ever blooming shrub Description:
- ‘Bonica’ Inducted into the World Federation of Rose Societies Rose Hall of Fame in 2003
- Prolific, blooms in flushes throughout the season.
- Prolific, flush, medium to large, cluster-flowered (26-40 petals) stems of blooms cluster-flowered shrub
‘Drift®’ Groundcover Roses by Star Roses and Plants
- 8 colors from White Drift Rose to Red Drift Rose
- Blooms 1 ½†-3†bushes about 2 feet tall spreading
- Winter hardy, disease resistant, and easy to grow’
‘Abraham Darby’ Description: David Austin Shrub
- David Austin Shrub rose
- Very large, rounded, cup-shaped flower with up to 70 petals
- Vigorous and hardy in all areas
- Fruity fragrance
Large Flowered Climbers | Climbing Roses
- Dominated by their growth habit with long arching canes
- Ability to climb over fences, walls, trellises arbors and pergolas
- Climbers offer a wide range of flower colors, forms, & shapes with canes from 10-14 feet tall.
‘Above and Beyond’ Description:
- The old classic ‘Westerland’ raised modernized with 21st century ‘best-off-best’ qualities!
- Salmon-orange blend, repeat blooming, 10-14 feet
- Old fashioned, 3 ½â€-4†blooms, fruity fragrance
- ‘4th of July’ Description:
- Gorgeous Red striped and bright white
- 10-14 feet canes
- Fresh cut apple and & sweet rose fragrance
Miniature or miniflora roses
- Ideal for containers and small space gardens, hardy due to being grown on own root
- Great for edging, rockeries, indoor gardens
- Minifloras are a new class introduced by ARS in 1999 for the size between miniature roses & floribundas
‘All a’ Twitter’ Description:
- Twinkling brilliant orange
- Tall, medium size blooms
- Winter hardy
*Roses require 6-8 hours of full sun. They will bloom with 4 hours of full sun but they have more foliage and less blooms.
