The roses familiar to most people today are the type called Hybrid Tea roses. These produce beautiful single long-stemmed blooms, which are ideal for cutting. They flower repeatedly for months in the summer. Yet they have disadvantages - their bushes are shapeless and dull, and usually need constant chemical attention in the form of sprays against mildew and insect pests. Many gardeners prefer the plants known as Old Roses.

What is an Old Rose?

An old rose is defined as any rose variety which was introduced into cultivation before the first Hybrid Tea, in other words any type cultivated before 1867. All cultivated roses have been bred from wild rose species. These species include.......
Old roses are usually once-flowering, producing a mass of bloom for a month or so. Their colours are typically white, pink and red, since yellow was a later introduction. They normally have a powerful perfume. Their shape is typically much flatter than that of a modern Hybrid Tea rose.

Old European Roses

Gallica Roses

Rosa gallica greeks and romans suckering to form hedges sturdy little spraying

Damask Roses

persians crusaders once-flowering spring or autumn

Rosa alba and its Relatives

white pale tall can grow in shade Rosa canina crossed with damasks

Moss Roses

Mossy coating on stems and buds which produces a scented oil probably grew from damasks and centifolias

Cabbage Roses

Centifolias

Oriental Roses

China Roses

These were introduced from China around 1800. They brought the genes for continuous flowering into the European rose breeding scene. The plants are rather spindly, and their flowers are small, and lack any strong scent. Old Blush china

Tea Roses

The tea roses were less hardy than the western kinds, but, like the china roses, they were repeat-flowering. They also had yellow strains, which until then

19th Century Developments

Bourbon Roses

These were first found in the Ile de Bourbon (Now Reunion) in the Indian ocean. Usually described as a cross, some modern writers believe they were introduced from India.

Hybrid Perpetuals

Noisettes

Decline and Fall

The first Hybrid Tea, the variety 'La France' was introduced in 1867. Over the next 50 years, these gradually took over from all the old varieties. Since rose varieties will not breed true, they must be propagated by cuttings, and are normally sold as grafts onto a sturdy rootstock. This means that if no nurseries are propagating a particular variety, it may quickly disappear. By.... hardly any old rose varieties were being sold.

The Old Rose revival in Britain

Southern Belles and Gold Rush Towns

In America, the old roses had made surprisingly extensive inroads in the 18th and early 19th centuries. The varieties bred in Europe were very quickly brought into cultivation in the United States. The climate in the southern states was particularly suitable, and a revival of old roses began in the US independently of that in Europe. Apart from the old south, one of the great centres for redicovering old roses was in the now almost deserted towns of the Californian gold rush. The early settlers in these mining towns had brought roses with them, which coudl still be found 100 years later.