Tbh I don’t think any type of rose is all that beginner friendly. Not that a beginner who has a love of roses couldn’t quickly learn, but you do need that passion I think.
Hybrid teas growth is upright, stiff, bare legs, more ‘formal’ looking, often grown with no other planting. I think that has turned a lot of people off them, and onto the more luxurious forms of the DA’s, but as we know, that isn’t instant, and in some cases, it’s not even what you’d end up with if they’re using a group of three planted to look as one. DA’s have that romance, with the full blooms, and yes killer marketing! I do love DAs but I also love many other kinds of roses. Good thing there’s something for everyone if you are a rose lover 🙂
I started off with DA roses as well cause of recommendations as well as already having a DA rose potted from previous years which I liked very much. So I bought a few more and just loved them straight away so just stuck with getting those roses for a while but last year started looking at other that stood out on this forum or on gardeners world on tv so I bought absolutely fabulous, Bonica and chapeau de napoleon for that reason. Still hard to judge them so far but this year they should shoot off.
Hybrid teas I’m very wary of buying because I do part time gardening and several people have had them in borders and they have been 1 or 2 tall bare sticks with a few flowers at top and they have always looked horrible when seen in person. Although I’m not sure how much care was taken with any of them. I have Chandos beauty which seem alright so far but might try a couple this year, see how they get on.
@Fire I don't like to recommend roses which I don't grow. I'll leave it to Marlorena with her 35+ years of experience. I am great at theory, I learn quickly and read a lot but that's it.
Climbing reds are tricky, they are either fragrant or disease-resistant, never both (at least I think there isn't one which has it all). I've been looking at Florentina for some time and want her but if I get Kiss me Kate, I won't have space for her. I also like Crimson Siluetta which is the newest (2019, not available in the UK) small repeating rambler in Kordes Siluetta range, looks like a good rose for an obelisk. There are just too many nice roses.
I have one true red rose, another inherited one without an ID, I like it a lot but it's certainly tricky to combine with other colours and doesn't fit in the traditional cottage garden colour palette. I like it with lavender and purple but I have a bit of everything, I only avoid dark reds which really don't go well with it and I have other true red plants like monarda Cambridge Scarlett.
I hugely admire the late David Austin... he was a great English entrepreneur who eventually took the rose world by storm, and single handedly changed the public's perception of what a rose should look like.. and he didn't just do this here but throughout the entire world - really a huge achievement, and all started from a little 8 x 6 foot shed... it wasn't until the mid 1980's that his roses took off..he was ridiculed, ostracised and ignored by his peers for a long time, but he persisted...
His achievement can be measured by the fact that breeders all over the world, in Europe, Australia, Asia and the Americas, this past 20 years or so, are all now producing look-a-like Austin roses.. in fact it's becoming impossible to i.d. some of them because they all look the same... Some breeders, especially American I think, begrudge the success.. some of them produce better roses and they know it, but do not get the recognition... but calling them 'Dee-Lish'.. 'Ch-Ching' or 'Betty Boop'.. does not set our hearts alight.. DA roses are also not the most healthiest in Europe.. that accolade really belongs to Germany, because they have more stringent rose trials..
Mr Austin through sheer persistence, made everyone move away from the high centred hybrid tea, towards the rounded cabbagey old fashioned rose look.... something else he did which was very clever.. he homed in on people's desire - perhaps unknowing desire - to be middle class, which in turn can make people feel better about themselves... his literary or aristocratic rose names, romantic fragrant roses from a bygone era... rose buyers the world over want to buy into that 'English rose garden' appeal, they've seen in glossy magazines and on the internet..
Always the English rose garden of the country house, sweeping lawns and cottage garden borders... that's what we are subconsciously buying into... we don't always know it though..
...lots of colour there Edhelka… nicely put together too... I like the white clematis, top row, middle..
...incidentally, if anybody wants a scented, unfading red climbing rose, semi double showing stamens, then I recommend 'Allen Chandler'.... it also repeats well through the season... … if you can put up with just scattered later blooms, then I recommend 'Souvenir de Claudius Denoyel'... a clg. hybrid tea from early 20th C.. deliciously scented rose, which should be better known, as an alternative to say Etoile de Hollande..
..old Paul's Scarlet is a wonderful red, but rarely repeats.. never did for me.. ..'Chevy Chase' has some repeat blooms, not much scent but a striking non fading red..
..I don't know some of the modern red climbers like The Prince's Trust..
For me, the appeal of DA roses is that, given the length of time is takes to establish a climbing rose in place, doing what I want it to be doing, I have to be pretty sure it's going to work. I've been trying for seven+ years to get a structure that works in my garden - with roses as one of the main base plants. It will probably take another seven to know if my choices have been good ones and the vision will 'work'. I've already made several bad choices - learning as I go - but I'm not even sure I will be in my current house/garden in another seven years. I find that I'm trying to get to a very specific place (perhaps too specific). As someone who knows little about roses, a strong recommendation, background and reliability is key. I will take a punt on many plants but with trees and roses I want to be reasonably sure.
Personally, I think I probably have a strong associations with some particular rose plants I grew up with. I don't think I'm a fan of the 'rose garden' generally. I love massed climbers and my (crude, inaccurate) assocation is probably more slightly wild, medieval cottage garden, than middle class borders. I like the idea of an explosion of nature and colour and scent.
I like the idea of an explosion of nature and colour and scent.
I like that, sums it up for me too.
We visit so many gardens and I’m always on the lookout so I’ve seen a lot of the roses I bought in person. The rest have come highly recommended.
To be honest, I probably idolise Marlorena more than David Austin as I’ve bought a lot of her recommendations and not just roses. I do make my own decisions as well though! It is about wanting to create a particular look or feel.
RE: red. I just don’t like bright red roses! Especially if they’re hybrid tea shaped. It’s just the look of them, when I see them I just think ‘yuck’ can’t really explain why other than that. I do like other shades of red though - but I like deep pinky or purple reds or orangey reds.
I am great at theory, I learn quickly and read a lot but that's it.
I feel like this! I’ve started to give advice to people on here and also on Facebook which is generally well received. However I occasionally feel like a bit of a fraud because at the stage I am with my Gardening my knowledge is still the majority theory, what I’ve read and learned from others experience and my own instinct. The experience is slowly catching up.
But all all of those other means of learning are still valid and helpful to share.
What I think is really great these days is the availability of online gardening instruction videos. Because very often, you read instructions on how to do something, say prune an espalier apple, but often the written instruction can be vague or confusing to someone who is completely new to it. Video can be much easier to follow. I might make some of my own one day, just for fun.
I think the best thing I’ve learned is that gardening is a game of patience. Enjoying all the little stages of growth in the garden and not expecting it to all be perfect and finished in one go. Like a makeover program.
First plant I bought was a maiden apple tree that I wanted to espalier, in full knowledge that my son, who had just bee born, would be starting school by the time it was finished! Long term project and I’ve taken a lot of pleasure out of training it and watching it develop.
Some gardeners often seem to want everything to be done immediately, and finished - and perfect I’ve noticed, fretting over every single small bug of blemish that appears, “What can I do to get rid of these aphids!!” And in return people advise “spray it with insecticide ASAP!!!
Sometimes I feel they’d be happier sticking with artificial plants.
@Marlorena So true, part of it is a fantasy that is being sold...buy this rose and be transported to the romance of a period piece drama...tbh I’m quite a romantic which is probably why I love roses and cottage gardens, just full of romance to me.
I haven’t bought the DA roses from Long Acres because it’s a lucky dip and I already have Gentle Hermione, and while it’s a great rose, I prefer to try different roses. I would like any of the others listed though. I think I’ll wait til I can get Sombreuil (and others, I’m sure). I used to have this rose in another garden many years ago, and it was so lovely.
That reminds me of names...so true that the name is important. Sombreuil sounds much more ooooh ahhhh than ‘Colonial White’, I think.
Posts
Hybrid teas I’m very wary of buying because I do part time gardening and several people have had them in borders and they have been 1 or 2 tall bare sticks with a few flowers at top and they have always looked horrible when seen in person. Although I’m not sure how much care was taken with any of them. I have Chandos beauty which seem alright so far but might try a couple this year, see how they get on.
His achievement can be measured by the fact that breeders all over the world, in Europe, Australia, Asia and the Americas, this past 20 years or so, are all now producing look-a-like Austin roses.. in fact it's becoming impossible to i.d. some of them because they all look the same...
Some breeders, especially American I think, begrudge the success.. some of them produce better roses and they know it, but do not get the recognition... but calling them 'Dee-Lish'.. 'Ch-Ching' or 'Betty Boop'.. does not set our hearts alight..
DA roses are also not the most healthiest in Europe.. that accolade really belongs to Germany, because they have more stringent rose trials..
Mr Austin through sheer persistence, made everyone move away from the high centred hybrid tea, towards the rounded cabbagey old fashioned rose look.... something else he did which was very clever.. he homed in on people's desire - perhaps unknowing desire - to be middle class, which in turn can make people feel better about themselves... his literary or aristocratic rose names, romantic fragrant roses from a bygone era... rose buyers the world over want to buy into that 'English rose garden' appeal, they've seen in glossy magazines and on the internet..
Always the English rose garden of the country house, sweeping lawns and cottage garden borders... that's what we are subconsciously buying into... we don't always know it though..
...incidentally, if anybody wants a scented, unfading red climbing rose, semi double showing stamens, then I recommend 'Allen Chandler'.... it also repeats well through the season...
… if you can put up with just scattered later blooms, then I recommend 'Souvenir de Claudius Denoyel'... a clg. hybrid tea from early 20th C.. deliciously scented rose, which should be better known, as an alternative to say Etoile de Hollande..
..old Paul's Scarlet is a wonderful red, but rarely repeats.. never did for me..
..'Chevy Chase' has some repeat blooms, not much scent but a striking non fading red..
..I don't know some of the modern red climbers like The Prince's Trust..
@Daniel Rutherford … you got some nice roses... great choices !..
I like that, sums it up for me too.
We visit so many gardens and I’m always on the lookout so I’ve seen a lot of the roses I bought in person. The rest have come highly recommended.
To be honest, I probably idolise Marlorena more than David Austin as I’ve bought a lot of her recommendations and not just roses. I do make my own decisions as well though! It is about wanting to create a particular look or feel.
RE: red. I just don’t like bright red roses! Especially if they’re hybrid tea shaped. It’s just the look of them, when I see them I just think ‘yuck’ can’t really explain why other than that. I do like other shades of red though - but I like deep pinky or purple reds or orangey reds.
I feel like this! I’ve started to give advice to people on here and also on Facebook which is generally well received. However I occasionally feel like a bit of a fraud because at the stage I am with my Gardening my knowledge is still the majority theory, what I’ve read and learned from others experience and my own instinct. The experience is slowly catching up.
But all all of those other means of learning are still valid and helpful to share.
What I think is really great these days is the availability of online gardening instruction videos. Because very often, you read instructions on how to do something, say prune an espalier apple, but often the written instruction can be vague or confusing to someone who is completely new to it. Video can be much easier to follow. I might make some of my own one day, just for fun.
I think the best thing I’ve learned is that gardening is a game of patience. Enjoying all the little stages of growth in the garden and not expecting it to all be perfect and finished in one go. Like a makeover program.
First plant I bought was a maiden apple tree that I wanted to espalier, in full knowledge that my son, who had just bee born, would be starting school by the time it was finished! Long term project and I’ve taken a lot of pleasure out of training it and watching it develop.
Some gardeners often seem to want everything to be done immediately, and finished - and perfect I’ve noticed, fretting over every single small bug of blemish that appears, “What can I do to get rid of these aphids!!” And in return people advise “spray it with insecticide ASAP!!!
Sometimes I feel they’d be happier sticking with artificial plants.