Types of Roses Explained: The beginner guide to choosing garden roses
Lee Burkhill: Award Winning Designer & BBC 1's Garden Rescue Presenters Official Blog
From the time-honoured elegance of Old Garden Roses to the modern sophistication of Hybrid Tea roses, the world of roses is a captivating tapestry of colours, fragrances, and forms for your garden. Whichever type of rose you choose to grace your garden, each rose brings unique character and beauty.
As you explore the diverse spectrum of rose types, you'll find yourself immersed in a world of enchantment and wonder that has captivated gardeners and dreamers throughout history.
Whether you're a seasoned gardener or just starting to delve into the world of roses, this guide will help you navigate through the various types of roses and discover their captivating diversity. Let's look at each type of rose to help you choose the perfect one for your garden's size, maintenance level and what you want from your rose. Whether you prefer more colour or scent!
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There are many different types of garden rose. All share that classic rose-shaped flower made up of layers of petals with protective petals encasing them (also known as sepals).
However, each type of rose has different characteristics and they have been bred to have different features depending on the type. Such as how big you want the rose to grow, how many flowers it produces (how floriferous it is), if they include scent, whether single or double flowered, climbing or free standing. The options when it comes to rose types can feel endless!
Beyond their visual and olfactory (scented) appeal, rose flowers carry rich symbolism and cultural significance. They have been used for centuries to convey emotions such as love, passion, beauty, and even sorrow. Different colours of roses are associated with specific meanings, allowing people to communicate sentiments through the language of flowers.
So let's look closer at the types of roses, their benefits, and the maintenance required of you, the gardener so that you can pick the perfect type for your garden.
The true Tea rose (Rosa chinensis) is the predecessor to modern Hybrid Tea roses. These hybrid roses came when Rosa chinensis was crossed with Rosa gigantean to form Rosa x odorata. Tea roses are admired for their large, exquisite blooms and a wide range of colours.
Tea roses originated in China and were introduced to the Western world in the 19th century. Their introduction was a significant event in the history of rose breeding, as they brought a new level of fragrance and beauty to the rose world. However, because their original genetic pool was limited, they might be considered rare in comparison to more widely cultivated rose types.
True Tea Roses have open flowers, visible stamens and anthers, and are dainty. They are fantastic for honey bees and pollinating insects.
True Tea roses have intermediate maintenance requirements in both winter pruning and feeding. They will require carefully looking after to stop them from becoming congested or leggy without careful pruning.
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Hybrid tea roses are probably the most popular rose in garden centres and plant nurseries. They take the original Rosa x odorata tea rose and cross it with another species to create a hybrid. Hybrid tea roses take the best parts of two plants and merge them together. Allowing the thousands of cultivars of rose plants that we see in garden centres based on this merging of different species. Almost an endless variety!
Hybrid tea roses usually bloom on a single stem and have large blousey flowers with a milder scent of tea. More often than not there’s so many petals the internal pollen sexual structures of the rose are hidden or hard for bees to get to.
Hybrid tea roses have that old 'classic cartoon rose' shape everyone recognises. Lots of large layered petals.
In milder climates with deadheading and feeding, they can bloom from May until September with care. In the winter, these roses bare their thorny stems, exposing gaps in your garden borders if you don't have a mixed flower bed layout.
Hybrid tea requires careful winter pruning before flowers appear in summer. Ensuring that the plants are kept in an open goblet shape and pruned to an outward-facing bud.
Hybrid tea roses are available in the widest variety of colours and sizes compared to other rose types. Choosing a hybrid tea rose over other types of rose often comes at the expense of less scent and, in some double-flowering roses, lack of pollen for bees and wildlife.
Hybrid teas are medium maintenance requiring multiple liquid feeds and winter pruning to keep them looking their best, along with deadheading when flowering. I class them as the intermediate gardener rose.
Shrub roses other wise known as Polyantha, are characterized by their bushy growth habit and diverse flower forms, colours, and fragrances. Shrub roses are a versatile category due to their low maintenance when pruning, making them a popular choice for casual gardeners and experienced enthusiasts. These roses are known for their resilience, ease of care, and ability to adapt to various growing conditions.
They are referred to as shrub roses as they take up the spaces in flower beds where shrubs would be placed, such as in the middle to the back of a border. Their shape resembles a shrub being round and squat, perfect when covered with flowers and to help bring some weight to a flower bed or garden border.
Shrub roses are a low maintenance rose. Simply prune them back with hand sheers after they flower. Feed in spring with a thick peat-free mulch or during flowering with liquid plant food.
Patio roses are very similar to shrub roses but far smaller. They are great for containers, balcony gardens or where space is limited. They are hardy (will survive frosts and wet summers), often floriferous (full of flowers) and easy to shape and prune. These smaller specimen roses are great for small gardens or where space is limited. Allowing any garden to have a rose or two!
Patio roses are the least fussy of all roses. Feed twice a year with liquid feed and deadhead after flowering. They are super low maintenance.
Old Garden Roses are a treasure trove of history and romance. These roses were cultivated before the 19th century, have interesting foliage and heavy scents Old garden roses are classified into several groups:
Gallica Roses
With vibrant colours and strong fragrances, Gallica roses are known for their lush, densely petalled flowers and distinctive grey-green foliage.
Damask Roses
Renowned for their intense and heady scent, Damask roses offer semi-double to double blooms in shades of pink and white. They were used in perfumery and rosewater production.
These are medium-maintenance roses, requiring deadheading, pruning after flowers have finished, and winter rose pruning to keep their shape.
These roses bring a touch of elegance with their repeat-flowering habits, rich colours, and delightful heady fragrances. They're a chance hybrid between the Old Garden Damask rose, and the Chinese tea rose, Rosa chinensis, around 1800, originally from Bourbon Isle (now named Reunion) in the Indian Ocean between Madagascar and Mauritius.
These are intermediate in terms of maintenance. Winter pruning, heavy feeding and staking the large flowers are all required to look after this rose.
Climbing roses take the rose to new heights as these specimens can easily be trained against walls, pergolas, buildings, rose arches and sheds. Climbing roses send up long, strong vertical growth and flower off horizontal side shoots. This is why pruning and training these vertical shoots sideways is important. If not, you end up with long tall whippy growth with a few flowers rather than full horizontal coverage full of flowers.
Most climbing roses need wires, a trellis or a support to grow over which then requires they are tied in. See the metal framework above that the climbing rose is carefully tied to and pruned against?
Climbing roses are high maintenance in terms of pruning, shaping and feeding. They can quickly become out of control and require harsh maintenance pruning once their horizontal shape is lost. They are best grown by intermediate to advanced gardeners. Beginners should look at rambling roses first.
A rambling rose is a type of climbing rose known for its vigorous growth, long canes, and abundant, sprawling clusters of flowers. These roses are characterized by their exuberant and natural growth habit, often producing a mass of blooms at one period in the year that create a stunning visual spectacle.
Rambling roses have a more informal and naturalistic appearance compared to other climbing roses. Their sprawling growth pattern gives them a wild and romantic charm, making them a popular choice for cottage gardens and more relaxed landscaping styles. They often only flower once but can be easily pruned straight after flowering with a pair of garden sheers and require less formal training than climbing roses.
Rambling roses are intermediate maintenance, requiring pruning one a year and some tying in.
A floribunda rose is a type of modern garden rose known for its abundant clusters of flowers and its ability to provide a profusion of blooms throughout the growing season. Floribunda roses are the result of hybridizing two types of roses: Hybrid Tea roses and Polyantha roses.
This hybridization has led to a rose category that combines the elegance and flower form of Hybrid Teas with the repeat-flowering trait of Polyanthas.
As the name "floribunda" suggests (Latin for "many-flowering"), these roses are celebrated for their prolific blooming habit. Each stem can carry multiple blossoms, creating a stunning display of colour and fragrance.
One of the defining features of floribunda roses is their ability to produce multiple waves of flowers throughout the growing season. This rose characteristic ensures that your garden remains colourful and vibrant for an extended period, which is so great for beginner gardeners!
Floribunda roses are low maintenance as they have been bred to be more resilient and easy to look after than Tea roses or Climbing roses.
There's a lot of confusion around tea roses and Hybrid tea roses. Often the term is used interchangeably.
Finding a true tea rose is difficult as often Hybrid teas have flooded the market over the last 100 years. A true tea rose is the Chinese rose (Rosa chinensis) which smells of freshly opened tea crossed with Rosa gigantean a large sprawling white rose found growing up tree canopies. These are known as Rosa x odorata.
A hybrid tea rose, is Rosa x odorata then crossed with another rose resulting in Rosa x hybrida.
Confused? Don't worry, many people are.
All you need to know is that hybrid tea roses are always a mix or cross-breed of roses with the original tea rose. A true tea rose comes from Rosa chinensis and Rosa gigantean only, and is called Rosa x odorata which are far harder to find and less common.
If in doubt when trying to ident a tea rose, it's more than likely a hybrid and not a true tea rose.
The patio rose is the smallest low-maintenance rose, as it can be pruned back after flowering with secateurs in minutes. If your patio rose is in a container, make sure that you feed it twice a year. Those in the ground only need feeding with a thick peat-free compost mulch in late Spring when they are putting on new growth.
The rambling rose is the second lowest in terms of rose maintenance. Cut these back after flowering using garden sheers and then give a liquid plant feed. The reason they come second as they are much more vigorous than a patio rose, so cutting them back depending on their size can take some time.
The Tea and Hybrid Tea roses have the highest maintenance requirements. This is because they are not as prolific as the climbers or ramblers and grow on new growth from this season, meaning winter pruning is required. They also have a habit of growing tall and spindly if not pruned or will be lacklustre unless fed correctly during the year.
All tea roses will require the following maintenance:
Removing the spent flowers of a rose is known as 'deadheading'. Deadheading roses acts as a boost to your rose plants energy stores. Hence, it keeps producing flowers as it conserves energy that would go into creating rose seeds or hips and focuses that energy back into making more flowers.
Deadheading roses is a clever way to keep your rose plant producing flowers for longer and is a pruning technique that's simple to follow.
Deadhead roses each time the flower finishes and leaves the beginnings of a rose hip. Cut this back to the next set of leaves beneath it to conserve energy further down the plant to create more flowers.
Roses are hungry plants and need rich, fertile soil with plenty of potassium and nitrogen to flower throughout the summer. This is why roses are an excellent plant for clay soil which is full of nutrients as long as there is some drainage.
Roses need feeding when they flower and also at the end and beginning of the growing season.
The best time to feed roses is when they are actively flowering in summer. Use a liquid feed high in potassium or a balanced 7:7:7 (NPK - Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium) feed.
Mulching roses in Spring & then Autumn (at the beginning and end of the rose growing season) with well-rotted farmyard manure or high-quality compost also helps give them a slow-release feed over the winter or when they are coming out of dormancy in spring.
The best rose feed is high in potash (potassium / K) for when they are flowering - Comfrey tea is an excellent rose feed and can be brewed at home organically. In early Spring, a high nitrogen feed helps the rose put on its leafy growth. The best way to feed roses is with a liquid plant feed using a watering can.
Roses thrive in well-draining, fertile soil (clay vs sandy soil) that provides essential nutrients and proper aeration for their roots. The best soil for growing roses is a combination of factors that create an optimal environment for their growth and development.
Clay soil is often the best soil for roses as its nutrient-rich as long as the clay doesn't get water logged and freeze in the winter. If so, you must position the roses further away from the water-logged area or plant in a raised bed.
Here are the key characteristics of the ideal soil for roses:
Roses don't like to sit in waterlogged soil, which can lead to root rot and other issues. Ensure the soil has good drainage to prevent water accumulation around the roots. The converse also occurs if you have sandy soil that's too free draining. Roses will struggle to get the nutrients and moisture they need.
Loam soil is a balanced mixture of sand, silt, and clay particles. It provides good drainage while retaining adequate moisture and nutrients. Adding organic matter like compost can improve the soil structure, making it ideal for roses. So well-balanced soil with organic matter is the best for growing most roses.
Roses generally prefer slightly acidic to neutral soil with a pH range of 6.0 to 7.0. Soil pH affects nutrient availability, so it's important to test your soil and amend it as needed to achieve the desired pH level.
Roses are heavy feeders and require a steady supply of nutrients. Incorporate well-rotted compost, aged manure, or balanced organic fertilizers into the soil before planting to ensure a good nutrient foundation.
Applying a layer of organic mulch, such as compost, manure or leaf mould, around the base of the rose plants helps conserve moisture, suppress weed growth, and regulate soil temperature. Mulch also gradually breaks down, enriching the soil with organic matter. This mulch can help roses thrive in the garden.
If your soil has poor drainage, consider planting roses in raised beds or mounds to elevate their root zone. This helps prevent waterlogged conditions and promotes healthy root development.
Roses are just the bee's knees when it comes to garden flowers, and there are oodles of reasons why they're such darlings in gardens all around the globe. From their drop-dead gorgeous looks to their swoon-worthy scents, roses are like the rockstars of the garden. Given the fact there are so many different types of roses for all gardener levels and sizes, what's stopping you from introducing them to your garden?
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Happy gardening!
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