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| Photo Credit: ©2001 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard |
| Floribunda roses feature clustered blooms that repeat throughout the season. |
Roses – they’re as varied and different as they are beautiful. No matter what rose you’re admiring, it belongs to a single botanical family: Rosaceae. All roses also fall under the genus Rosa. You can find roses nearly anywhere in the world. In fact, there are more than 150 different species of true wild roses found throughout the world, spanning native locales as varied as the tropics and the arctic.
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| Photo Credit: ©2001 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard |
| The modern shrub “class” is a catch-all group for roses that defy other classification. |
Of course there are a few rose “posers” found in gardens that are actually hybrids between the true roses and other, closely related non-rose species and others are “sports” or genetic mutations of species roses and hybrids. But the roses that most gardeners grow are cultivars (copies of domestic plants produced by commercial growers) or hybrids (the genetic offspring of parent plants with distinctive characteristics) that are treasured for their special blooms, fragrance or for such qualities as disease resistance or tolerance to heat, humidity and cold. Collectively, these are called “varieties,” and more than 1,000 are known to exist.
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| Photo Credit: ©2001 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard |
| Climbing roses are excellent choices for small, sunny spaces. |
Besides species, or wild roses, the major classes of garden roses are:
- Climber – long-caned cultivars suitable for training onto vertical supports.
- Floribunda – a cross of hybrid tea and polyantha roses with clustered blooms.
- Grandiflora – large-statured cross between hybrid tea and floribunda roses.
- Hybrid tea – cross between tea and hybrid perpetual roses.
- Miniature – genetic dwarf hybrids of roses of other classifications.
- Mini-flora – intermediate in size and foliage between miniatures and floribundas.
- Old garden – antique classics and favorites that predate 1867 and include Bourbon, China, hybrid perpetual, noisette, Portland and tea roses, plus Rosa x alba, R. x damascena, R. x centifolia and R. gallica, among others.
- Polyantha – diminutive hybrid of China tea, noisette and R. multiflora.
- Shrub – a general classification for unique roses that defy classification into the other categories.
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