Almost everyone knows what a rose looks like and could easily pick one out of any bouquet of flowers, but did you know there are 3 specific categories of roses commonly grown today?
Wild Roses, Old Garden Roses, and Modern Roses
Wild roses (or species roses) are useful in landscaping, but they also thrive in naturalized settings, and are known for their showy early summer flowering (usually without repeat flushes) spectacular thorns, and glorious rose hips. Here in the PNW, you wouldn’t have to look far to find plenty of native Nootka roses on any local trail or in naturalized landscaping. She’s a popular and wonderful Wild Rose.
Old Garden Roses, on the other hand, were hybridized to provide beauty in a garden setting. To qualify as an Old Garden Rose, a variety must have been introduced before 1867.
Every stem an Old Garden Rose produces is charmingly different. If you were to harvest 50 bunches of any Old Garden Rose variety, each bloom would be just a bit different, with differently ruffled petals and deliciously varied ombre petals. Even the stems would vary, as some would stand straight and tall, while other cuts would have softer, graceful, weeping stems.
Old Garden Roses are also known for their heavenly fragrance both in the garden and once cut, with light citrus, floral, and even honey-scented blooms. Once open, these lovely roses typically drop their petals after 5-6 days.
When you think of the standard rose, sold at every grocery and flower shop, you are thinking of a Modern Rose. Today, Modern Roses are grown commercially in huge quantities, and as a result of being hybridized for larger bloom size and prolonged vase life, they can have almost no fragrance.
BUT that is definitely not ALL that you should think of when you imagine Modern roses!
The truth is, Modern Roses are technically any variety that has been introduced since 1867. That year the first hybrid tea rose, ‘La France,’ was introduced, and since then over 10,000 Modern Roses have been introduced! This category includes these popular classifications:
Hybrid tea roses,
- likely the most popular form
- known for their vigor
- disease resistant
- produce elegant, long-stemmed blooms
- can produce several flushes of blooms throughout a growing season
Floribunda roses,
- characterized by their profuse ability to bear flowers in large clusters or trusses
- Given proper nutrition and plenty of water, these roses can bloom continually through the summer
Grandiflora roses,
- (hybrid x floribunda roses)
- display the characteristics of a hybrid tea
- ALSO have the ability to bear clusters or trusses
- grow to amazing heights of 6-8 ft +
and Shrub roses, which are
- very hardy
- very vigorous, (can grow to 15 feet or more in every direction given the correct climate and growing conditions),
- and produce large quantities of clusters of flowers.
The unique group of roses hybridized by David Austin (often called English Roses) belong to this class. They resemble old garden roses in shape and form but are repeat bloomers and often have a lovely fragrance.
Today, when we commonly talk about “Garden Roses,” we are usually talking about Modern Roses that are hybrid teas, floribundas, grandifloras, or shrub roses and have the swirly-center, soft, romantic look, and shorter vase life of old garden roses. I like to call them “Garden-Style” roses.
These are the roses we grow at Triple Wren, and I love working with them!
We specialize in growing roses that are perfect for cutting for events. As hybridized Modern Roses, they are not fussy about being picked and are stunningly beautiful. They do have a shorter vase life than standard roses with little scent and thicker petals, but this is not a problem for events or for cutting weekly arrangements for your home.
And as icing on the cake, cutting these Garden-Style roses makes them even more productive, and offers such therapeutic delight for the gardeners and their families!
