How to grow a Rose plant

Growing Roses Made Easy

The History of Roses
From the coolest white rose to the very hottest red rose, all the roses we grow in our gardens today are the product of more than a staggering 70 million years of change.

Rose Types
There are many types of roses available in garden centres, so it's important to choose the correct one for your particular situation. Luckily enough, all garden centres use the same names to describe the different types. All the common types of rose are described below.

Wild Roses
These are the parent roses of all other roses, found growing in the wild. Most have small single flowers with five petals. The colours are normally pink, rose, yellow or white rose. Wild roses are very hardy and grow as largish bushes or climbers. They are very resistant to disease and pests. The flowers appear only briefly in early summer, often followed by attractive red hips in autumn

Common varieties include Rosa rugosa which has largish rose coloured flowers and beautiful red hips in autumn, Rosa arvensis with small yellow flowers and Rosa canina with scented pink flowers. 

OLD GARDEN ROSES
These are hybrid roses which have been bred by crossing different species of wild roses. They make good-sized shrubs and a few produce flowers in two or more flushes throughout the summer, although most only produce flowers in early summer for three or four weeks. Normally they are over 100 years old.

Other types of roses (climbing, rambler, shrub, Hybrid Tea, ground cover and floribunda) can be viewed by clicking "next rose page" below. Each of these types has a page dedicated to them.

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