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Guide to Floribunda Roses

 

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Floribunda roses are well-loved for their beautiful flowers, delicious scent and repeat flowering habit, gracing your garden with blooms from early June until late autumn. They produce flowers in clusters in a wide range of colours and styles, ranging from bright to pastel colours, striped or spotted blooms. Developed by crossing hybrid teas with polyantha roses, they are strong-growing, stiff shrubs - smaller and bushier than hybrid tea roses but less dense and sprawling than the average polyantha.

They are easy to grow and manage – requiring a hard prune in winter, two feeds a year in spring and summer and dead-heading after flowers have faded to encourage the production of more fresh new blooms. Modern floribunda roses have strong disease resistance and new varieties are being created all the time – so we are constantly extending and revising our range!

Jump To:

What are floribunda roses?

Brief history of floribunda roses

Comparison of floribunda, hybrid tea and polyantha roses

How to choose a floribunda rose

Where to grow floribunda roses

When to plant a floribunda rose

How to plant a floribunda rose

Growing floribunda roses in containers

Pruning floribunda roses

Caring for floribunda roses through the seasons


What are floribunda roses?

Floribundas are stiff, bushy, upright shrub roses characterised by clusters of flowers borne repeatedly throughout summer and autumn. The name “floribunda” is Latin for “many flowering”. Each flower is smaller than hybrid teas and they normally aren’t as fragrant but the large clusters of blooms gives an impressive floral display. Hardy and free flowering, their showy, fragrant blooms are grown for display, rather than used as cut flowers as the stems are shorter than hybrid tea roses. Floribunda roses are particularly well suited to providing permanent structure to bedding displays, growing in containers on the patio, or incorporating into the front of shrub or mixed borders.

 

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Brief history of floribunda roses

Floribundas were developed by cross breeding hybrid teas with polyantha roses, with the intention of creating roses which bloomed as profusely as polyanthas but with the beauty and range of colours of hybrid teas. Danish rose breeder Dines Poulsen introduced the first polyantha/hybrid tea cross in 1907, producing a rose called ‘Red Riding Hood’. Initially called a Hybrid Polyantha or Poulsen rose, it demonstrated characteristics of both its parents. Poulsen and other breeders introduced several other Hybrid Polyantha roses in the early 1900s, including ‘Else Poulsen’ in 1924. In 1930, Dr J.N. Nicolas, a rose hybridiser in the US coined the name “floribunda” which has been used ever since to refer to roses that are a cross between hybrid teas and polyanthas.

 

Floribunda Roses as cross polyantha and hybrid tea

 

Comparison of floribunda, hybrid tea and polyantha roses

Floribunda roses are smaller than a typical hybrid tea but less compact and sprawling than your usual polyantha. Blooms have the classic hybrid tea shape and are available in the same impressive range of colours, making them a great addition to a rose bed, mixed border or even a container on the patio. Classifications between different types of roses can sometimes be confusing at best. In the table below we’ve tried to demystify the main differences between floribunda, hybrid tea and polyantha roses to help you to understand which might be most suitable for your site and situation.

 

Comparison floribunda to HY to polyantha roses

How to choose a floribunda rose

There are a wide range of floribunda roses available in the same impressive range of colours as hybrid tea roses, so it’s worth considering which is best suited to your site and situation.

Whilst selection is partly a matter of personal taste, give some thought to these points when choosing a floribunda rose:

  • Flower Colour – floribunda roses are available in pinks, oranges, reds, yellow, oranges, purples, creamy whites and almost everything else in between. The only colours they do not naturally grow in are blue and black, although through clever breeding blueish varieties such as Rose ‘Blue for You’ are now available. Consider how you want your floribunda rose to fit in with the wider colour display in your garden. Warm colours like yellows, oranges and reds are energising and make the garden feel vibrant. Cool colour like purples and blues are calming and can make the garden feel more serene. Avoid using colors that clash, like bright red and bright magenta.

 

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  • Flower Colour (continued…) - the colour wheel is a useful tool to help plan colour schemes in your garden. Adjacent colour combinations that are next to one another on the colour wheel work well together because they harmonise and blend. Colours on opposite sides of the colour wheel deliver high impact colour combinations, such as red set off against a green background. For combinations of three colours, also known as colour triads, draw an equilateral triangle (one with three sides of the same length) connecting colours in the colour wheel. Colour triads include, for example, red, yellow and blue… or violet, orange and green…

 

Colour wheel

  • Eventual Height and Spread – consider how the eventual height and spread of different floribunda roses compares to what you're looking to use them for. Sizes of floribunda roses vary from compact and low growing patio roses with an eventual height of 30-60cm, ideal for the front of a border or small patio container, to taller varieties growing up to 1.5-1.8m (5-6 feet) which are well suited to using as a flowering hedge. We recommend planting most floribunda roses about 90cm apart in the border or 60cm apart when planted as a hedge.

 

Yellow floribunda roses

  • Disease Resistance – Floribunda roses are generally more disease resistant than hybrid tea roses, making them easier to grow. Disease resistance of more modern varieties tends to be superior to older varieties.

 

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Where to grow floribunda roses

Floribunda roses grow best in full sun in a moist yet free-draining soil. They will thrive on clay providing the ground does not lie wet…

  • Aspect - floribunda roses grow best in full sun. They will not succeed in shade or if they are crowded out by other plants.
  • Shelter – the chosen site should be sheltered from strong winds. Consider which direction the wind typically blows in your garden and if you can give your floribunda rose shelter behind a fence, shed, outbuilding, hedge or large shrubs in the border.

 

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  • Soil – floribunda roses prefer a rich, fertile, well-drained soil. They like to have plenty of moisture but do not like sitting with wet feet, so the ground must be free draining. If your ground naturally lies wet, incorporate some sand or coarse grid and organic matter when planting to improve drainage.
  • Space - make sure your rose has enough space so its roots aren't competing with other plants. If you’re growing your floribunda close to a wall, plant it at least 30-45cm (1-1.5 feet) away from the base of the wall so rainwater can get to the roots.

Cream floribunda rose

 

When to plant a floribunda rose

Potted roses can be planted at any time of the year, although from the beginning of autumn to early spring is best as this is when they are dormant. Bare root roses are available to plant during the dormancy period between November and the end of March. Do not plant roses if the ground is frozen or waterlogged. If the conditions are not appropriate, keep containerised plants in an unheated outbuilding and 'heel in' bare root roses by digging a trench in ordinary garden soil and placing the roots inside and covering with loose soil. Provide additional fleece protection if conditions are particularly harsh.

 

When to plant roses

 

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