About the Different Types of Roses

There are several types of roses. Many rose gardeners have their own favorite type of rose. Gardeners choose their roses depending on size, blooms, colors, traits, disease resistance, growing ability and other details they enjoy. Below your will find all the different types of roses and a description of each.

Hybrid Teas

Hybrid teas are the type rose that you think of when you picture a rose. A beautiful florist type rose with long stems. These roses bloom well but don't have as many blooms per bush since they usually grow one to a stem.

Floribunda

Floribunda Roses are another popular type of roses. Floribundas are small bushy plants that grow smaller blooms in clusters. Unlike Hybrid Tea roses, Floribundas can grow 5-12 roses on a single stem at one time. Prior to the early 1900's, Floribundas were known as Hybrid Polyanthas. A few message boards and veteran rosarians still use this term.

Grandiflora

Grandifloras is another common type of rose. Grandifloras are kind of like a mix between a Floribunda and Hybrid Tea. Grandifloras have large blooms on and can be either single-blooms or clustered blooms on a single stem. It's like having the best of both worlds.

Miniature

Miniature roses are very small roses grown on small bushes. Typically the blooms are 1-2 inches but can sometimes be as small as ½ inch. The bushes are usually 1-2 feet high but some will grow as large as normal rose bush if pruned to do so. Miniature roses are great for containers and growing indoors. They can be planted in the garden as well.

Mini-Floras

Mini-Floras are a fairly new type of rose. They are much like a miniature rose but bigger. Yet, they are still smaller then a floribunda. They are mostly single-blooming roses and are grown well in pots or the garden.

Old Garden Roses

Old garden roses are class of roses that were available prior to 1867. The Old Garden Roses or OGR, consists of several old roses classes. In those classes you will find wild roses, bourbons, elentines, gallicas, mosses, noisettes, teas, damasks, musks, and older versions of roses that are now hard to find.

Shrub Roses

Shrub roses consist of several classes of roses as well. Shrub type roses include Rugosas, English and Buck roses. My hybrid roses that don't have a class usually fall into shrubs.

While these are only a few types, there are several, even thousands of roses per class and by type. Some are exhibition rated while others are simply grown for beauty and favoritism. Hybrid Teas and Floribundas are typically the most popular for rose shows while climbing, Floribunda and Grandiflora is a favorite for their clustered blooms.