Our choices for the best overall plants in these categories:

Most Fragrant Roses

Angel Face Intrigue Perfume Delight
Chrysler Imperial Lagerfeld Royal Highness
Double Delight Heirloom Sterling Silver
Fragrant Cloud Mirandy Sweet Surrender
Granada Mr. Lincoln Tiffany

 

For The Cutting Garden

  • Red: Mr. Lincoln, Olympiad, Chrysler Imperial, Night Time
  • Pink: First Prize, Tiffany, Queen Elizabeth, Royal Highness, Touch of Class
  • Yellow: Gold Medal, Peace, Sunbright, Oregold
  • White: Pascali, Garden Party (blend), Honor, Pristine
  • Orange: Fragrant Cloud, Cary Grant, Seashell, Dolly Parton
  • Lavender: Blue Girl, Paradise, Lagerfeld
  • Multi: Dbl. Delight, Granada, Color Magic, Rio Samba, Abracadabra

For the Color Garden

  • Red: Europeana, La Sevillana, Showbiz
  • Pink: First Kiss, Gene Boerner, China Doll, Bonica
  • Yellow: Sun Flare, Sunsprite
  • White: Iceberg, Summer Snow, White Simplicity
  • Peach/Orange: Charisma, First Edition, Livin' Easy
  • Lavender: Angel Face, Intrigue, Royal Amethyst
  • Multicolor: Summer Fashion, Playboy, Double Delight

Best Shrubs

  • Red: La Sevillana, Red Meidiland, Europeana
  • White: White Meidiland, Iceberg
  • Pink: Carefree Beauty, Bonica
  • Lavender: Lavender Dream

Best Climbers

  • Red: Don Juan, Red Fountain
  • Pink: First Prize, Aloha, Cecile Brunner
  • Yellow: Golden Showers, Peace
  • Orange: America
  • White: White Dawn, Lace Cascade, Iceberg
  • Multicolor: Joseph's Coat

 

A few tips on landscaping with roses. . .

Cutting vs. color - What do you want from your roses? If it is big, classic shaped blooms on long stems that you can cut, put in arrangements, or give as gifts, then choose hybrid teas or grandifloras. If it is continual mass color that you can look out upon, then choose floribundas, shrubs, climbing, or miniatures. Or why not both? Taller growing roses (hybrid teas, grandifloras, climbers), while blooming beautifully at the top, can sometimes be sparse at the bottom. By terracing, mixing in, or bordering them with lower growing roses (floribundas, shrubs, minis), your entire garden will appear far more lush, green, and colorful.

Fragrance - Whether it is spicy, fruity, or just plain sweet, don't forget this most enjoyable aspect of roses. You can fill your home with wonderfully scented cuttings while you surround an entry, walkway, porch, patio, or spa with fragrant color.

Antiques - The rambling bushiness and hardy disease resistant qualities of older roses have made them increasingly popular.

Continuity - Use roses to enhance or attract attention to other garden elements. Climbers can cover an arbor to create a striking entrance. Surround a garden seat or swing or border fountains or birdbaths with bright color, or cover an unsightly buil ding.

Color sense - Pastel, white, and particularly yellow roses make great color enhancers. Mix with darker colors to help them stand out.

Zigzag planting - Stagger rose bushes to get more plants in less space. This will cover gaps and give a more lush, full appearance.

THE MOST POPULAR TYPES OF ROSES

Hybrid Tea - These descendants of the true Tea roses have long pointed buds and beautifully formed single blossoms on long cutting stems - these are the florist-type roses. Plants reach at least 6'- 8' in height.

Grandiflora - The cross between a hybrid tea and a floribunda combines the qualities of both, and produces "grand flowers." These varieties have clusters of large flowers on long stems, and generally are tall, slender plants.

Climber - Hybrid tea, floribunda, polyantha, and grandiflora hybrids or sports which produce long 8'- 20' canes. They generally need the support of a trellis, fence, or pillar. Most are profuse flowering and very hardy.

Antique - If you have a spot that demands a low maintenance rose, most of these are perfect. There are a number of types of antique roses including Chinas, Noisettes, Musk, Polyantha, Tea, and species. Most are large growing, fragrant, and have lovely old-fashioned, romantic blooms.

Shrub - This exciting new class of roses combines the lush green foliage of a hardy landscape shrub with the mass cluster bloom typical of a floribunda. These low to medium growing bushes are ideal for background plantings or for borders around taller roses. They are also excellent in pots, planters, or barrels.

Floribunda and Polyantha - Floribundas are small bushy roses growing 2'- 6' in height which have "flowers in abundance." Small blossoms are borne in clusters with many blooms to each stem. Polyanthas have even smaller flowers on shorter plants. Both are excellent for mass color borders.

David Austin English Roses - These English roses are a different kind of rose from the typical hybrid tea. They are like the damask, alba, and Gallica roses of yesteryear but bloom repeatedly and come in a wider color range. They retain the large double blooms, heavy fragrance, and, importantly, disease resistance of the old garden roses.

Miniature - Miniature roses are one way to have a great variety of blooms in a small space. most can be kept under two feet or even lower. They are grown on their own roots, so the suckers that come up are the same named variety. They are useful landscape or container plants and are a charming novelty that everyone can enjoy.