Fragrant old fashioned roses, sure smell good!

Many thousands of rose hybrids and cultivars have been bred and selected for garden use, mostly double-flowered with many or all of the stamens mutated into additional petals. As long ago as 1840 a collection numbering over one thousand different cultivars, varieties and species was possible when a rosarium was planted by Loddiges nursery for Abney Park Cemetery, an early Victorian garden cemetery and arboretum in England. Twentieth-century rose breeders generally emphasized size and color, producing large, attractive blooms with little or no scent. Many wild and "old-fashioned" roses, by contrast, have a strong sweet scent.

Roses thrive in temperate climates, though certain species and cultivars can flourish in sub-tropical and even tropical climates, especially when grafted onto appropriate rootstock.

There is no single system of classification for garden roses. In general, however, roses are placed in one of three main groups:

Wild Roses - The wild roses includes the species listed above and some of their hybrids.


Old Garden Roses - Most Old Garden Roses are classified into one of the following groups. In general, Old Garden Roses of European or Mediterranean origin are once-blooming shrubs, with notably fragrant, double-flowered blooms primarily in shades of white, pink and red. The shrubs' foliage tends to be highly disease-resistant, and they generally bloom only on two-year-old canes.


Modern Garden Roses - Classification of modern roses can be quite confusing because many modern roses have old garden roses in their ancestry and their form varies so much. The classifications tend to be by growth and flowering characteristics, such as "large-flowered shrub", "recurrent, large-flowered shrub", "cluster-flowered", "rambler recurrent", or "ground-cover non-recurrent".

- Red: A very close friendship, love "I Love You"
- Pink: Grace, gentle feelings of love and friendship
- Dark Pink: Gratitude
- Light Pink: Admiration, sympathy
- White: Innocence, purity, secrecy, friendship, reverence and humility.
- Yellow: Often to joy and deep friendship or platonic love. In German can mean jealousy and infidelity.
- Yellow with red tips: Friendship, falling in love
- Orange: Passion
- Burgundy: Beauty
- Blue: Mystery
- Green: Calm
- Black: used to signify death (black being the color of death) often of old habits. In a positive light it signifies rebirth after death. Also, slavish devotion (as a true black rose is impossible to produce).
- Purple: protection (paternal/maternal love)