Top Varieties for Floribunda Rose
Rosa ‘Flower Carpet Scarlet’
A new breed of landscaping roses came about with the advent of shrub roses, which offer beautiful ways to fill in borders and cover bare earth. The low-growing groundcover roses are useful for mass planting in a border or under a tree, and can mix colorfully with perennials or shrubs. They can line a path, cover a slope, or be planted in hanging baskets or window boxes for a bloom-spilling display. To reinvigorate groundcover roses each year, cut back the plants by two-thirds while they are still dormant in early spring.
Rose ‘Knock Out’ shrub
Shrub roses take the best of the hardiest rose species, and combine those traits with modern repeat blooming and diverse flower forms, colors, and fragrances. Some shrub roses may grow tall, with vigorous, far-reaching canes; others stay compact. Recent rose breeding has focused on developing hardier shrub roses for landscaping that need little to no maintenance.
Grandiflora Rose
Grandiflora roses blend the best traits of hybrid teas and floribundas. They produce the same elegantly shaped blooms as hybrid teas, but in long-stemmed clusters that continually repeat, like floribundas. The plants tend to be tall (up to 7 feet), hardy, and disease-resistant. Because of their size, grandifloras are suited to hedging and flower-border backgrounds. This rose category was created to accommodate the unique ‘Queen Elizabeth’ rose introduced in 1955.
English rose
One of the biggest challenges for late 20th-century rose breeders was restoring fragrance while improving vigor of new rose introductions. English-style roses provide a lush, romantic solution. The flowers are densely filled with petals, much like antique roses, and most possess a strong fragrance that harkens back to old-fashioned tea roses. Yet their growth habits, health, and, most of all, their tendency to repeat bloom, are an improvement on their ancestors. English roses are a good choice for cutting gardens. Their full, intensely perfumed flowers make sumptuous bouquets. Some varieties climb if left unpruned and can be trained along a fence or arbor. Shown here: Heritage English rose
Climbing Rose
The acrobats of the rose world, climbing varieties develop long canes well adapted to training on pillars, fences, arbors, and gazebos. Most climbing roses are mutations or variations of bush-type varieties. They develop either large, single flowers or clustered blooms on a stem. Climbers may bloom once a season or continually, depending on the variety. Climbers can be trained to bloom more heavily by leading their canes in a horizontal direction. Loose anchoring to a support will encourage young plants to climb.
Species Rose
If you favor a slightly wilder look in your garden, look to the ancestors of roses you grow and enjoy for many of the same admirable qualities. Most species of roses offer small blooms, and they usually appear only once a season, but the landscaping benefits make them worthwhile to include in borders and background plantings. Most species of roses can tolerate extreme weather conditions and because of their colorful hips (fruit), they are good choices for attracting birds and other wildlife to the garden. The canes are often vigorous and arching. Stems may be highly colored but are almost always thorny, making large species good candidates for privacy hedging and deer-frequented areas.
Hybrid tea rose
Hybrid teas traditionally produce the showiest blooms. In fact, most roses at florist shops are hybrid tea varieties. Today’s rose breeding emphasizes fragrance as well as plant vigor. The form of a hybrid tea rose is tall and upright, with sparse foliage toward the base. The blooms develop singly on long stems, and the buds are often as elegant as the open blooms. Hybrid teas require careful pruning while still dormant in early spring to ensure good air circulation through the plant and the development of vigorous, healthy canes. A sunny location with well-drained, fertile soil and rose food applied at least three times a season will guarantee abundant flowers to enjoy in a vase. Protect roses in climates colder than Zone 6 with heavy mulching around the base of the plant.
Miniature rose
Gardeners limited in space can enjoy all the fun of rose growing by cultivating miniature roses in containers. They also adapt well to flowerbed edging, front-of-the-border socializing with perennials and annuals, and low hedges. Miniature roses first came into being in the early 1930s as an accidental result of rose hybridizing. Since then, master miniaturists have created many jewel-like varieties featuring perfectly shaped tiny blooms on clean, healthy plants that generally stay under 2 feet. Miniature roses respond to all the care basics of regular-size roses – deep irrigation, sunshine. and regular fertilizing – but they do need extra winter protection in colder climates. To ensure the plant doesn’t die back to the roots, in Zone 5 and below, bury the rose plant in a mound of soil.
More Varieties for Floribunda Rose
‘Amber Queen’ Rose
Rosa ‘Amber Queen’ bears clusters of cupped double flowers in a medium yellow and possesses a strong spicy-sweet fragrance. The plant stays compact, growing to 2½ feet tall and wide., and is hardy in Zones 6-9.
‘Angel Face’ Rose
Rosa ‘Angel Face’ shows strong disease resistance, an improvement on lavender roses. The ruffled blooms have a strong citrusy scent. The plant grows 2-3 feet high and is hardy in Zones 5-9.
‘Blueberry Hill’ Rose
Rosa ‘Blueberry Hill’ features unique pale lilac semidouble blooms that smother the plant’s glossy dark green foliage early in the season and then continuously until fall. The flower fragrance is reminiscent of a sweet apple. The rounded plants show great vigor and disease resistance. They grow 4-5 feet tall and wide and are hardy in Zones 5-11.
‘Cinco de Mayo’ Rose
Rosa ‘Cinco de Mayo’ is an award-winning selection honored for its nonstop flower production, spicy color blend, and disease resistance. The clustered blooms feature a smoky mix of russet and lavender with coral highlights. Their fragrance is like a tart apple. ‘Cinco de Mayo’ grows 3-4 feet tall and is hardy in Zones 5-9.
‘Hot Cocoa’ Rose
Rosa ‘Hot Cocoa’ is another unique-color, award-winning variety. The blooms feature a smoldering color combination of cinnamon and pepper red, with a purple shimmer on the petals. It grows 4-5 feet tall and is hardy in Zones 5-9.
‘French Lace’ Rose
Rosa ‘French Lace’ offers classic urn-shape ivory to apricot buds that open to large, full flowers of a warm ivory tone. The fragrance is delicate. Flowers open on an upright plant that grows 3 feet tall and is disease resistant. Zones 4-9
‘Honey Perfume’ Rose
Rosa ‘Honey Perfume’ features clustered apricot-yellow blooms on a disease-resistant plant. The fragrance is like a mixture of honey and spice. It grows 3-4 feet tall and is hardy in Zones 5-9.
‘Iceberg’ Rose
Rosa ‘Iceberg’ is one of the most popular landscaping roses. It sets continuous drifts of small, clustered double white flowers from late spring through fall. The blooms have a light, sweet fragrance. The plant grows 4-6 feet tall and wide and is hardy in Zones 5-9.
‘Livin’ Easy’ Rose
Rosa ‘Livin’ Easy’ bears big apricot blooms that deepen to orange in full flower. The fragrance is moderate and fruity, and the foliage is glossy. The weather-tolerant plant is resistant to fungal diseases and grows 4-5 feet tall. ‘Livin’ Easy’ is hardy in Zones 5-9.
‘Nearly Wild’ Rose
Rosa ‘Nearly Wild’ is a shorter floribunda rose that works well as a groundcover or low hedge. Clusters of single rose-pink flowers with a light apple scent cover the vigorous, rounded plant and repeat continuously through the season. It grows 2-4 feet tall and is hardy in Zones 4-9.
‘Scentimental’ Rose
Rosa ‘Scentimental’ is a contemporary rose with peppermint-stripe petals that hearken back to gallica species roses. The blooms have a strong old-rose fragrance. The hardy plants grow to 4 feet tall in Zones 5-9.
‘Sexy Rexy’ Rose
Rosa ‘Sexy Rexy’ offers perfectly shaped, large, clear-pink blooms that unfurl layer after layer of petals. The clustered bouquets almost smother the glossy foliage, especially in the season’s first flower flush. They’re scented with a light tea-rose perfume. This variety is known to be very disease resistant. It grows 3½ feet tall and is hardy in Zones 5-9.
‘The Fairy’ Rose
Rosa polyantha ‘The Fairy’ puts on a constant show of dainty double pink flowers on arching canes early in the season until frost. It grows 2-3 feet tall and 4-5 feet wide in Zones 4-9.
Garden Plans for Floribunda rose
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