by Lydia Holley April 28, 2025
My garden is at its most glorious when the roses are in bloom. Right now it seems almost everything is in flower. For instance, not only are the roses flowering, hardy amaryllis is blooming, too, alongside southern magnolias, and all the plants that usually flower in between.
What I like about roses is they come in various sizes and bloom colors. So, whether you want a climber that can grow 30 feet tall or stay as short as six feet, a large bush 15 feet tall and wide, or a small rose that only grows two or three feet tall, there is a rose that will meet those requirements.
Roses come in various classes. There are several classes of antique roses. Some are highly scented, others have only a delicate fragrance. Some bloom once a year; some are repeat bloomers. Many have small but abundant flowers when they are blooming.
Modern roses are placed in classes that were introduced after 1867, when a tea rose and a hybrid perpetual was crossed to produce the first hybrid tea. Suddenly, it became popular to breed roses for size and color. Many times scent was discarded for these other qualities. Hybrid teas have stronger stems and fewer blooms. They are popular as cut flowers.
As chemicals for fungicides became available to the home gardener, it became popular to spray roses to kill blackspot and other funguses. But when consumer sentiment changed, breeders began testing for disease-resistance and introducing roses that did not need spraying. Many of the roses being introduced now are disease resistant to funguses. The most popular rose of all, Knock Out rose, was one of the first roses that exhibited extreme disease resistance. Suddenly there was a new class of roses: the landscape rose.
Scent is another trait which is being re-introduced into new cultivars since it became a quality consumers started demanding. More recently over the past decade, trials have been held for disease resistance to Rose Rosette disease. This particular disease has decimated many roses throughout the country as there is no known cure.
New rose introductions are constantly changing to meet the needs of the consumer. You can choose roses specifically for disease resistance, scent, size, or color. Or you can still purchase many of the antique roses which graced gardens in years past.
For more information, call 903-675-6130, email [email protected], or visit txmg.org/hendersonmg.