Choosing roses for your landscape

Roses have long been a favorite among all types of gardeners, and roses continue to enjoy great popularity today.  In addition to their beauty as cut flowers and in bouquets, roses are among the most useful and attractive flowers to grace the landscape of any home.

As a matter of fact, the exterior of any home can be made more graceful and more inviting through the use of wonderful landscape roses.  Choosing the right ones, and ensuring that they compliment the overall style of the home, is very important to the overall success of the landscape.

Fortunately, the number of ornamental landscape roses make finding them an easy task.  The difficulty consists of choosing the right ones from this variety.  There are a number of classes of roses whose characteristics make them great for use as landscape ornamentals.  For instance, the gardener who wants to grow roses up and over an archway or a trellis may want to use tall growing tea roses.  Tea roses are renowned for their nodding blooms, therefore all who pass under the arch would be treated to the beautiful sight of roses in full bloom.

To accent a wall or other permanent structure, a true climbing rose is often the best choice.  True climbing roses can be trained to many different effects, including climbing up the length of the structure, or accenting the tops and sides of a wall or building.

The Polyantha or modern day Floribunda rose is a great choice for gardeners looking for a vibrant splash of color for the background.  These popular varieties of roses have large sprays of blooms, and they are popular choices for providing color in the landscape. 

If roses are to be planted in front of other plants in the landscape, miniature or low growing China roses are a perfect choice.  Roses can even be used as hedges, with modern Shrub roses and Rugosa roses being excellent choices.

Of course, as with any aspect of gardening, color is an important consideration.  After all, every gardener’s goal is a garden full of colorful, vibrant and healthy plants.  Fortunately, roses come in so many shapes, sizes, textures and colors that there truly is a rose for every gardener. 

The goal of choosing the best color roses for the landscape should be to compliment the color of the surrounding landscape.  For instance, a spray of plain white tea roses can be striking against a dark red brick home, or an arrangement of pink roses can be the perfect compliment to a stone or marble entranceway.  With so many colors of roses to choose from, it should be easy to find colors that compliment and enhance any decorating scheme.

One popular trend in the world of landscaping is to use a variety of different plants and flowers in the landscape.  Whereas single species landscaping was in vogue a few years ago, most of today’s gardeners like to use a mix of different colors, species and styles of plants.  Doing so not only makes for a vibrant garden, but it is thought to enhance the health of the soil as well.

Fortunately, roses lend themselves well to this mixture, and roses can be a beautiful part of an overall landscape of plants and flowers.  In addition, there are roses suitable for a variety of climates.  Choosing the best rose varieties for your specific climate should mean fewer pesticides, few disease issues and an overall healthier garden.