Hybrid teas, floribundas, patio, rambling roses, standards…? All sound like a foreign language? Wondering who this chap called David Austin who crops up a lot in conversations about roses might be? We’ve provided a simple explanation of what each different type of rose actually means in practice, in simple terms. The infographic below gives a high level overview of the key features of each type of rose. We then provide a more detailed description of each type of rose and share our best selling varieties as ideas and inspiration for your own garden.
Hybrid teas are large-flowered, highly fragrant roses producing spectacular, shapely blooms from high-centred buds on long, straight stems. These are produced one per stem, typically in three flushes between summer and late autumn, making excellent cut flowers. Hybrid teas have an upright growth habit, generally sparsely foliaged, and prefer a position in full sun with a minimum of 6 hours sunlight per day. Originally bred as a cross between hybrid tea and polyantha roses, they're well-suited to growing in groups of odd numbers in the rose garden, mixed borders or along a fence line. They're available in a range of colours spanning soft pinks to deep reds, lilac to vibrant yellow and perfect white to apricot. Selection is very much a matter of personal taste - by choosing from our selection of healthy varieties with good disease resistance, you won't go too far wrong.
Our 5 Best Selling Hybrid Tea Roses:
Browse all of our hybrid tea roses.
Floribunda is Latin for "many flowering", representing a group of roses that bear many flowers held in large clusters that bloom continuously from summer through to late autumn. Originally produced by crossing Hybrid Teas and Polyantha roses, they have an open, goblet-shaped growth habit with stems that arch a little more than Hybrid Teas, which tend to be more upright. They're valuable for bringing a mass of colour to the garden over a long flowering season, especially when grown in groups of odd numbers. They aren't normally as fragrant as Hybrid Tea roses but are generally hardier and more robust, with a higher disease resistance and therefore easier to grow. Floribunda roses are perfect for mixed borders and large dedicated rose beds.
Our 5 Best Selling Floribunda Roses:
Browse all of our floribunda roses.
Climbing roses are an excellent way of introducing height to the garden alongside beautiful flowers and often a fabulous fragrance. They are well suited to growing up or over walls, trellises and arches, adding a feeling of grandeur, abundance and airiness to your outdoor space. Climbing roses produce large flowers typically held singly or in small groups and are almost always repeat flowering. They are also easier to manage than some other types of roses as they flower on old wood. They are healthy growers with attractive fragrant flowers that clothe the plant from top to bottom. All of our climbing roses are multi-stemmed, so you'll have plenty to work with when fanning them out on a fence, wall or trellises. They are also ideal for growing on pillars, pergolas, arches and obelisks.
Our 5 Best Selling Climbing Roses:
Browse all of our climbing roses.
Ramblers are free-flowering roses with long, flexible stems that become clothed with bunches of small to medium sized flowers between early and mid-summer, flowering prolifically, usually once per year. The stems are pliable, making them easy to bend and tie into place, with ramblers also boasting beautiful rose hips in autumn, adding further colour and interest later in the season. Rambling roses have a range of uses from growing over pergolas, trellis and arches to covering unsightly objects and sprawling through mature shrubs and trees to give a naturalistic appearance. They're sufficiently strong-growing to be suitable as a support for other climbers, such as clematis, with stems also lax enough for them to work well trailing down slopes.
Our 5 Best Selling Rambling Roses:
Browse all of our rambling roses.
Patio roses do not normally exceed 45-55cm with smaller roses of less than 45cm normally classed as miniature roses. Patio roses are really just dwarf floribundas with the same style of flowers and foliage just in a smaller package, sometimes grafted onto a standard to add height to the patio display. Despite the name, they don’t need to be confined to containers on the patio. With their compact, bushy growth habit and fulsome double or semi-double flowers, they also work well at the front of mixed borders or below larger roses in the rose garden. Their elegant shape, manageable size and diverse colour palette makes them a great addition to bring life and vitality to smaller gardens or gaps in larger borders. They're still small enough to be grown in window boxes and balconies or combined with bedding plants as part of close-knit planting displays.
Our 5 Best Selling Patio Roses:
Browse all of our patio roses.
Standard roses have a lollipop shape with a single, tall stem, topped with foliage and flowers, like a small tree. Flowering at eye level, they're perfect for adding height to both formal and informal planting schemes on the patio or in the border. Standard roses can be used as a single focal point or in pairs either side of a doorway or arch. They also work well either side of a gap in a hedge to frame the view beyond. They're usually modern, miniature or patio roses grafted onto a strong bare stem but can equally be rambling roses grafted as a weeping standard in the same way to create a cascading form. Patio roses work particularly well in containers but prefer a sheltered location so they're not blown over in the wind given their top-heavy nature. Consider staking the stem to keep it secure, if required.
Our 5 Best Selling Standard Roses:
Browse all of our standard roses.
David Austin was a well-renowned British rose breeder who lived in Shropshire. He focused on breeding roses with the same fragrance and character of old garden roses but in the wide range of colours and with the same repeat flowering capability of modern roses such as hybrid teas and floribundas. The David Austin group have now been breeding these exquisite English roses for almost 60 years, which continue to be held in high esteem as some of the best-loved, high performance flowers in the garden. The many-petalled, repeat flowering blooms bring a delicious, rich fragrance to the garden, working well in mixed borders and of course deserving of a place in every rose garden. As an approved stockist of David Austin roses, we are fortune to be able to offer a wide range of these exceptional roses for delivery to anywhere in the UK.
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