What are the best roses for my western garden?
Pick your favorite color first
– – then look for the heartiest ones with the boldest colors.
As you’ll see from my lists, I’m a Grandiflora fan. They’re tough, and they make great cut flowers that rose arrangers treasure.
There are new ones of each type each year – and many in recent years have been very hearty in our western US climates.
American Rose Society ( www.Rose.org) in the U.S. for example, has a list each year of the best new roses based on trial plantings. Those are great starting points.
ARS uses a rating system based on performance in the gardens & include heartiness as a criteria. That really helps for beginning growers who don’t like injurious bugs or disease. (There are many beneficial bugs out there too.)
Another is the Help Me Find database for finding roses by name.
The Pacific Northwest US zone, for example, uses the recommended rose list from Portland, Oregon. Links below are to the individual pages of HelpMeFind.com. Some of the most successful I’ve used while in the Northwest include:
| Queen Elizabeth | Pink | Hybrid Tea | Very hearty and tall |
| About Face | Orange blend | Grandiflora | hearty & fragrant |
| Veteran’s Honor | Deep Red | Hybrid tea | hearty & bold |
| John F. Kennedy | White blend | Hybrid tea | fragrant and tall |
| South Africa | Yellow | Grandiflora | large double flowers |
| Julia Child | Butter yellow | Floribunda | flower clusters |
In the Southwest US zone where heat is a big factor, I’ve had success with these grandifloras as starting points.
| About Face | Orange blend | hearty & fragrant |
| Tournament of Roses | Pink blend | continuous blooming |
| Lagerfeld | Mauve blend | very fragrant |
| Fame | Deep pink | large blooms & tall |
| Cherry Parfait | Red blend | very hardy |
| Dick Clark | Red blend | fragrant & with large blooms |
Do you love those quality roses in your garden ?
The American Rose Society (ARS) has been making sure that they’re available since 1892.
They are:
The best resource for successful rose gardening in the nation, across all regions.
The International Cultivar Registration Authority Rosa (ICRAR) which was appointed by The International Society of Horticultural Science (ISHS) in 1955.
The oldest single plant horticultural society in the United States, and the oldest national rose society in the world.
THE centralized training body for all the local Rose Societies in the US. A founding member of the World Federation of Rose Societies (WFRS).
A good all-around ARS start-up 2019 rose selection guide (as pictured above) for your garden is here.
They do a great job of making recommendations within ARS District zones in the U.S. Europe is similar on a country-by-country basis.
Start with this ARS page. Their colorful printed materials (above) are very helpful too.
I hope this is helpful. Picking a rose is a big, subjective decision that changes every year when the new roses are introduced by the hybridizers and then brought into commerce through the retailers.
