What are the Different Types of Roses?

There’s an amazing, dizzying, and incredible array of Roses out there! So many it may be difficult to narrow down which one you want! If only we had the room and an army of landscapers, we’d not have to choose!

But if you have to choose just one (or just a few) Nature Hills is here to the rescue! Here are the many different types of Roses and how they each have an advantage over the others for your specific garden needs!

Wonderful Rose Varieties Explained

What exactly do all these Rose varieties mean for your landscape? Where is best for each type to grow? Nature Hills is here to explain the difference between each of these fantastic types of Rose bushes!

Elegant Hybrid Tea Roses

The fragrant, full, and posh English Rose garden beauty of Hybrid Tea Roses displays elegant single-borne blooms on long stems that just beg to be snipped for bouquets! Often taller shrubs, you can enjoy the beauty and smell of these spiraling buds that open into high-centered blooms from pointed buds. Often fragrant and continued reblooming, these large flowered shrubs feature high petal counts and a wondrous array of colors.

The notoriety of Hybrid Tea Roses has also been enhanced by the practice of naming Rose plants after famous people. In addition to the Amelia Earhart hybrid rose plant, you’ll find roses named after Betty White, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Dolly Parton, Princess Diana, and other flamboyant personalities. 

Hybrid Tea Roses in the Landscape

• Must-haves for the Cut flower garden
• Taller Garden Specimens
• Rose Garden standards
• Lovely in containers and planters
• High petal count and repeat bloom
• Solitary, large flower borne atop a long stem

Floriferous Floribunda Roses

Floribunda Roses are a hybrid cross between Multiflora (aka Polyantha Roses) and Hybrid Tea Roses. Revered for their long-lasting flowers and extended season of bloom, these Roses keep their Multiflora roots by forming clusters of multiple flowers at a time! 

Often fragrant, this variety is fantastic in the cutting garden, as lower growing garden accents and available in a striking array of colors, Floribunda Rose bushes are easy to grow and bloom from late spring until frost in fall!

Floribundas in the Landscape

• Flowers held in clusters
• Bloom late spring through fall
• Borders and Edging
• Low-Hedges and Backdrops
• Striking Mass Plantings
• Extended Season Color

Grand Grandiflora Roses

Grandiflora Rose bushes are a cross between a Floribunda and Hybrid Tea Roses, keeping the full flower clusters of the Floribunda side of the family, but having the Tea Rose long stems and big flouncy blooms! Fantastic in bouquets as they are consistent rebloomers, Grandiflora Roses come in a wide range of sizes, colors, forms and scents. Often hardier in cold than Hybrid Teas, these are fantastic for bursts of garden color and as focal points in the landscape.

Grandifloras in the Landscape

• Garden Accents and Focal Points
• Versatile Additions - Wide Range of Size Options
• Reblooming
• Hardy Roots
• Large, Full Flowers held in Clusters

Versatile Landscaping and Shrub Roses

The workhorses of the Rose family, Landscape and Shrub Roses act as living hedges and large-scale garden displays. Including the formidable Rugosa Rose, Landscaping Roses fill large areas and form thickets that birds adore. Fantastic nectar and pollen-laden resources for bees and butterflies, Shrub Roses are gorgeous leafy backdrops, often have fall Rose hips, and are fantastic for hedging and privacy anywhere in the sun!

Landscape Shrub Roses in the Landscape

• Backdrop and Hedge Roses
• Larger-Sized Mounding and Thicket-Forming Barrier Plantings
• Landscape Definition and Structure
• Very Rugged, Durable and Easy to Grow
• Free Flowering and Pollinator-Friendly
• Great in Containers and Perfect for Rows, Groupings and En Masse

Grow Vertical With Climbing Roses

Fast-growing and with long, flexible, sturdy canes, the Climbing Rose is available in a wide range of colors, sizes, and forms! Either upright or rambling, Climbing Roses are able to grow from 8 to 20 feet tall and can be easily trained to grow on a trellis, drape over an arbor, romantically clamber over a pagoda or create vertical walls throughout the garden! They can even be left to cascade and ramble over the ground as groundcover and en masse filler. Climbing Roses typically flower on old canes first, and the new flowers are formed on new growth in summer. They will need to be attached to structures to keep them in place.

Climbing Roses in the Landscape

• Acrobatic Climbers or Rambling Groundcover
• Strong Flexible Canes Easily Train onto any Structure
• Wide Range of Sizes, Styles and colors
• Vertical Garden Interest
• Includes Grandiflora, Hybrid Tea, Floribunda and Landscape Rose in Climbing Form

Sweet and Petite Miniature Rose Bushes

Pint-sized versions of the other above Rose bushes, Miniature Roses may be small, but they have just as much impact on the garden when it comes to color and variety! Perfect in containers and planters, anyone with or without a yard can still enjoy Roses! Small-scale landscaping at its best, balcony and Container Gardeners in a wide range of growing zones can experience the beauty of a Rose bush in a fraction of the space.

Ideal as edging and front-of-the-border accents, en masse plantings of these versatile, mini flowering shrubs fill your landscape with drifts of reblooming color! From single-borne to clusters, the often perfumed little blooms are darling little pops of color and great gift plants!

Miniature Roses in the Landscape

• Small-Scale Blooms are Big on Impact
• Containers, Planters and Balconies
• Lovely In Drifts, as Edging and Groupings
• Fantastic Gift Plants
• Dizzying Array of Colors and Sizes

Low-Growing Garden Gems - Groundcover Roses

Another form of Hardy Landscape Roses, hardworking and low-growing Groundcover Roses are the living mulch and finishing touches for your landscape! Often spreading much wider than they grow tall, but brimming in clusters of blooms from late spring until frost, these types of Rose bushes require the least amount of maintenance and fuss. Available in an equally dizzying array of colors and forms, from single to double, scented to unscented, Groundcover Rose bushes fill large swaths of area in lush greenery and drifts of colorful flowers! Often with remarkable disease resistance and cold/heat hardiness, we’re sure there’s a Groundcover Rose to match and enhance your landscape in our inventory.

Groundcover Roses in the Landscape

• Low-Growing Garden Bed Definition, Edging & En Masse Color
• Vibrant and Free-Flowering Spring til Fall
• Very Tough, Hardy and Disease Resistant
• Low Maintenance
• Great as Spillers and Fillers in the Landscape and in Container Gardens!
• Perfect for Low Hedges, In Rows, Groupings, and as Facer Plants

Go Big With Tree-Form Roses!

Super special Rose Trees feature everything you love about Roses, and then elevated! The same big, bold, beautiful blooms you love - only now held up higher for your inspection and closer to the nose to enjoy their fragrance! Go ahead and gaze at these eye-level Roses of all types listed above. From Miniature Rose Trees to Grandiflora Rose Trees, we’re sure there is a Tree Form Rose to match your favorite Rose shrub!

Expertly grafted atop a 2-3 foot tall standard Rose trunk that is straight, sturdy, and elegant! Over time, your beautiful Rose Tree will grow into a showy specimen. No one walks past a Tree Rose without stopping to take a long look! Container and planter ready, your Patio Garden can have a crowning jewel, the front porch or front garden gain a boost of amazing curb appeal, and back seating areas gain fragrant conversation pieces!

Rose Trees in the Landscape

• Captivating Specimens
• Container Accents & Garden Focal Points
• Expertly Grafted Rose Bushes On Top of 2-3 foot tall Rose Standard Trunks
• Floribunda, Miniature, Grandiflora, Shrub, and Hybrid Teas on Tall Straight Stems
• Curb Appeal, Conversation Pieces, and Supreme Visual Interest

Nearly Infinite Choices!

Need help narrowing down your options? Check out these more Rose options to help you fill a specific garden requirement! There is an old-fashioned garden antique, hardy native Rose, or effortless-to-grow Modern Rose out there for you!

Maybe you are looking for the most Fragrant Roses Nature Hills has to offer, or perhaps the most deer-resistant Roses that feature fragrance and thorns that can even keep deer at bay. Though when desperate, Deer will have a nibble at the new growth.

Narrow your search first by Plant Hardiness Zone, and further fine-tune it based on height, color, and sun needs! Check out these Roses that bloom in partial shade or Roses that are incredibly cold-hardy! There are Roses that bloom in the hottest climates as well! Can’t decide on one color? Check out multi-colored Roses!

Looking for a specific brand? Nature Hills Nursery is proud to offer Easy Elegance® Roses, Drift® and Knock Out® Rose bushes, Proven Winners® and First Editions® brand Roses! Plus a large selection of Nature Hills’ Choice Rose blooms for you to choose from!

Detailed Rose Care and Support

The Nature Hills #ProPlantTips Garden blog has tons of information available to you so you can learn how to give your new prized Rose bush the very best of care! From finding the right Rose fertilizer to support these blooming machines. To the right methods of Pruning Roses. Since Roses are deciduous shrubs, you need to know all about winterizing your Roses and un-wintering Roses in spring!

Do you still need help with your Rose bush? Our helpful and knowledgeable customer service and sales department is here to help you grow the perfect Rose bush for your garden!

Nature Hills is committed to partnering with expert growers, and providing quality plant material and mature rootstock to guarantee the Rose you receive is of the highest quality! Plant breeders and Rosarians are constantly developing new and exciting varieties of Rose bushes to suit every possible garden niche out there! 

So check back often to see what the future holds for Rose bushes and fill your garden with these elegant plants that have captivated humanity for centuries!

Happy Planting!