Polyantha

Literally "many-flowered" roses, from the Greek "poly" (many) and "anthos" (flower). Originally derived from crosses between two East Asian species (Rosa chinensis and R. multiflora), polyanthas first appeared in France in the late 1800s alongside the hybrid teas. They featured short plants — some compact, others spreading in habit — with tiny blooms (1" in diameter on average) carried in large sprays, in the typical rose colors of white, pink and red.

Their main claim to fame was their prolific bloom: From spring to fall, a healthy polyantha shrub might be literally covered in flowers, creating a strong color impact in the landscape. Polyantha roses are still regarded as low-maintenance, disease-resistant garden roses today, and remain popular for that reason. Examples: 'Cecile Brunner', 'The Fairy', 'Red Fairy'.

Grandiflora

Glowing Peace

Crimson Bouquet

Candelabra

About Face

A grandiflora is a cross between a floribunda and a hybrid tea. Grandifloras are tall elegant plants which bloom repeatedly during the season, and generally feature classic hybrid tea flower clusters with stems which are slightly shorter than those of hybrid teas. This rose grows up to six feet tall.

Grandifloras (Latin for "large-flowered") were the class of roses created in the mid 1900s to designate back-crosses between hybrid teas and floribundas that fit neither category — specifically, the 'Queen Elizabeth' rose, which was introduced in 1954. Grandiflora shrubs are typically larger than either hybrid teas or floribundas, and feature hybrid tea-style flowers borne in small clusters of three to five, similar to a floribunda. Grandifloras maintained some popularity from about the 1950s to the 1980s but today they are much less popular than either the hybrid teas or the floribundas. Examples: 'Queen Elizabeth', 'Comanche,' 'Montezuma'.

Hybrid Tea

One of the most popular rose types, these are tall, long-stemmed roses ideal for cutting. The roses you usually see at the florist. The flowers are usually borne singly, one to a stem, rather than in clusters. Blooms have a high-center point. The flowers are well-formed with large, high-centered buds, and each flowering stem typically terminates in a single shapely bloom.

Memorial Day

In the garden they are often featured as single specimens or in a traditional rose cutting garden. The shrubs tend to be stiffly upright and sparsely foliaged, which today is often seen as a liability in the landscape. Many varieties reveal a beautiful fragrance.

The hybrid tea remains the standard rose of the floral industry, however, and is still favoured in small gardens in formal situations. Examples: 'Peace' (yellow), 'Mister Lincoln (red), 'Double Delight' (multicolors).

Love n Peace

The hybrid tea class is important in being the first class of roses to include genes from the old Austrian brier rose (Rosa foetida). This resulted in an entirely new color range for roses: shades of deep yellow, apricot, copper, orange, true scarlet, yellow bicolors, lavender, gray, and even brown were now possible.

The new color range did much to skyrocket hybrid tea popularity in the 20th century, but these colors came at a price: Rosa foetida also passed on a tendency toward disease-susceptibility, scentless blooms, and an intolerance of pruning, to its descendants.

Elle

The favourite rose for much of the history of modern roses, hybrid teas were initially created by hybridizing Hybrid Perpetuals with Tea roses in the late 1800s. 'La France,' created in 1867, is universally acknowledged as the first indication of a new class of roses.

Hybrid teas exhibit traits midway between both parents: hardier than the teas but less hardy than the hybrid perpetuals, and more everblooming than the hybrid perpetuals but less so than the teas.

Hybrid teas became the single most popular class of garden rose of the 20th century; today, their reputation as being more high maintenance than many other rose classes has led to a decline in hybrid tea popularity among gardeners and landscapers in favor of lower-maintenance "landscape" roses.

Floribunda

Rosa Borussia, a modern Floribunda roses.

Floribunda is a new class of roses that means "many flowering". These bushy shrubs have the large, showy blossoms of the hybrid teas, but bloom more freely, setting clusters of three to fifteen blossoms rather than a single bloom on a stem.



Betty Boop

Floribundas are versatile; an individual shrub will fit easily into almost any sunny border planting. However, they are perhaps most striking in mass plantings. Now they are still used in large bedding schemes in public parks and similar spaces. Examples: 'Dainty Maid', 'Iceberg', 'Tuscan Sun'.

Day Breaker

Typical floribundas feature stiff shrubs, smaller and bushier than the average hybrid tea but less dense and sprawling than the average polyantha. The flowers are often smaller than hybrid teas but are carried in large sprays, giving a better floral effect in the garden. Make any landscape designs stand out with the most colorful of rose types.

Honey Perfume

Floribundas are found in all hybrid tea colors and with the classic hybrid tea-shaped blossom, sometimes differing from hybrid teas only in their cluster-flowering habit. Long time ago, rose breeders quickly saw the value in crossing polyanthas with hybrid teas, to create roses that bloomed with the polyantha profusion, but with hybrid tea floral beauty and color range.

Livin' Easy

In 1909, the first polyantha/hybrid tea cross, 'Gruss an Aachen,' was created, with characteristics midway between both parent classes. As the larger, more shapely flowers and hybrid-tea-like growth habit separated these new roses from polyanthas and hybrid teas alike,

a new class was created and named Floribunda, Latin for "many-flowering."