When it comes to dud purchases, buying a crummy rose ranks right at the top. A disappointing rose brings very little value to the garden, yet it does deliver a lot of frustration to the gardener.
We lovingly dig the perfect hole, amend the soil, tuck it into what we believe is its long-term home, and water and fertilize it with care … again and again and again. And then we wait, and wait, and wait for wonderful things to happen. When nothing wonderful does happen, we give it another year, and then another because we have been told to be patient with a rose for at least three years.
Finally, we are forced to it that the rose that we imagined and longed for, and the healthy foliage and beautiful long-awaited blooms that we envisioned, were way better in our imagination than they are ever going to be in real life. Those of us who are “shovel-prune-shy” keep growing the rose and just keep accumulating the lost opportunity costs.
“Selecting the right rose for your garden makes all the difference.” This is the opening line that greets us on the website for American Garden Rose Selections (AGRS). And truly, doing the research and selecting the right rose does make all the difference — because roses are not all equal.
Roses have been growing for 35 million years, proving that they have resilience, but not all roses on the market have these resilient characteristics. Fortunately, more and more rose breeders are currently heeding consumer demand and are trialing and marketing roses bred specifically for disease resistance, low maintenance and sustainability.
All-America Rose Selections (AARS) trials was the national rose trial founded in 1938 to recommend roses of merit. In 2012, the nonprofit organization American Garden Rose Selections (AGRS) replaced the AARS. AGRS grew out of discussions among leading American Rose Society , rose nurseries, hybridizers and botanical gardens who met to discuss issues in contemporary rose culture and the need for a national unbiased rose testing service for the average gardener.
AGRS tests roses of recent vintage. Four plants of each variety being tested are grown in each of 12 trial gardens for two years in six geographical regions in the United States: Northeast, Southeast, Northwest, Southwest, North Central and South Central. A rose must achieve an 80 percent score in at least three of these regions to win a Regional Choice Award.
The AGRS is modeled after the Allgemeine Deutsche Rosenneuheitenprüfung or ADR system, a successful system used in for over 25 years that is widely respected and acknowledged worldwide. Roses are tested for the ease-of-maintenance characteristics that consumers want in a garden plant: vigor, hardiness, low water and fertilizer use, and disease resistance. Synthetic chemical intervention is employed only in situations that could jeopardize the well-being of the entire garden. With respect to the environment, the AGRS has the motto “Do no harm.”
Aesthetic qualities such as beauty, bloom form, aging quality of blooms, rebloom habit and flowering effect are also evaluat ed. Because of the consumer demand for fragrant roses, the AGRS does something that the AARS never did. Roses that have been found to be garden-worthy are further considered for a Fragrance Award. One of my absolute favorite roses recommended by AGRS is the David Austin rose ‘Lady of Shalott.’ In 2017, it won both the AGRS Regional Award in four of the six regions, and the Fragrance Award.
Impressed by these statistics, I planted it in my garden. This extremely disease-resistant rose is outstanding. The plant covers itself with chalice-shaped salmon-copper blooms in the spring and continues to bloom prolifically throughout the growing season. The David Austin website describes this rose as 5 feet tall and 4 feet wide, but in San Diego gardens this rose can grow 8 feet tall and 6 feet wide, so be prepared to give it space and .
AGRS just announced its 2023 winners. For our Southwest region, the winners were ‘Brick House Pink,’ introduced by Star Roses and Plants; ‘OSO Easy Urban Legends,’ introduced by Spring Meadow Nursery; and ‘Brindabella Pink Princess,’ introduced by DIG Plants. The Fragrance Award Winner is ‘Magnolia Memories,’ introduced by Antique Rose Emporium.
We all read the reviews on Amazon before we buy anything. We read them even though we don’t know the reviewers, nor do we know whether we can trust their opinion. There are many reputable, trustworthy, and credible resources available for us to review before we purchase a rose.
• The American Rose Society has a garden rating for roses in its annual “Handbook for Selecting Roses.” This resource is free to but available for purchase at rose.org/shop.
• An excellent website to research a rose is helpmefind.com. Here you will get a description of the rose, a rating that I find to be very accurate, and suggestions of nurseries that may sell the rose.
• The Earth-Kind rose research project was created by horticultural specialists in the Texas AgriLife Extension Service. The goal is to identify roses that are beautiful, healthy and productive landscape plants despite almost no care. Further information and photographs of these roses can be found at aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/earthkindroses.
• Photographs of award-winning roses and further information about the AGRS can be accessed at americangardenroseselections.com.
• Check to see who bred the rose. There are many hybridizers who are known for consistently producing highly rated, beautiful, and disease-resistant roses. The hybridizers include but are not limited to Kordes Roses, Tom Carruth and Christian Bédard for Weeks Roses, David Austin Roses, Meilland Roses, Ping Lim, Bill Radler, Dr. David Zlesak, Harkness Roses, Dr. Griffith Buck and Dr. Keith Zary.
• Finally, check in with the consulting rosarians at the San Diego Rose Society, or visit the Inez Grant Parker Memorial Rose Garden in Balboa Park to see which roses do exceptionally well in San Diego.
In a rose nursery, we come face to face with many beautiful temptations. Even in bare-root season when there is not a bloom in sight, a photograph of a gorgeous bloom on a rose tag with the words “highly fragrant” can prompt us to impulsively load our cart.
Here is a tip: Before you go to the nursery, look at your garden space. Are you looking for a climber or a medium or small rose? Are you looking for a showy hybrid tea, or a shrub or floribunda for lots of garden color? Get the nursery’s rose list off the Internet, find the class and size of rose you need, and then consult your research resources for each rose’s garden rating.
Take your list with you. At the nursery, you are bound to be tempted by more roses. Breathe in deeply, repeat the mantra: “Selecting the right rose makes all the difference.” If you still can’t walk away, at a minimum check the garden ratings. It’s one of the reasons we carry our smartphones.
Perwich is a member of the San Diego Rose Society, a Consulting Rosarian and a Master Gardener with UC Cooperative Extension.
