Roses - a brief history

Roses have been around for thousands of years - they were painted on palace walls in Ancient Crete in 1600 BC and a thousand years later were portrayed on tombs in Egypt. The Greeks called roses the 'Queen of Flowers' and were the first to grow them in gardens and pots throughout the land. The Romans used them in food, wine, perfumes and medicine and are believed to have introduced them into Britain. In 1500 there were three types of roses grown in the Tudor garden - the red rose (Rosa Gallica), the white rose (Rosa Alba) and the fragrant Damask Rose. The globular and fragrant Centifolia or Cabbage Rose arrived from Europe in about 1550. This was followed by the Austrian Yellow which came to Britain from Persia via Vienna in 1580. The Musk Rose arrived around the same time from the Himalayas. These ancient garden roses only flowered once in a season, were limited in colour, globular in shape and spreading in habit.

The first China Roses arrived in Europe in the 18th century, followed many years later by the delicate oriental Tea Roses. Our modern roses evolved through the crossing of the repeat flowering China Roses and the beautiful flowered Tea Roses with our own frost hardy robust varieties. In the 1860s Rosa Multiflora was introduced from Japan. This wild rambler, with its small plain white flowers in large heads, became the parent of some of our ramblers and all of our floribundas.

For sheer beauty and variety roses are hard to beat. There are many different types of roses so everyone should be able to grow them, even if it is just a patio rose in a pot or window box. My father loved roses and grew mainly the hybrid tea variety. I prefer floribunda roses which mix nicely in the border with other flowering shrubs and perennials. One of my favourites is Iceberg which has lovely white flowers and is often used as a hedging rose. Another is Irish Wonder, a reliable prolific flowerer producing large trusses of beautiful red roses. Arthur Bell is a lovely fragrant yellow rose with large weather resistant flowers. It flowers early in the season and continues well into the autumn. Another very fragrant variety is Romance which grows taller than the others and produces large deep pink flowers. Summer just wouldn't feel right without roses in the garden and I can't imagine ever having a garden without them.