How to grow roses and best varieties

Roses are a favourite of many gardeners, loved for their beautiful flowers. They can be grown in the border or even in pots on the patio. 

Breeding work has created varieties suitable a wide range of uses, including climbers and groundcover. Not all roses are scented and not all of them bloom for a long time. Similarly, some resist diseases, while others struggle. 

To find the best roses to grow, Which? Gardening magazine grew a range of popular varieties to see which would give us the best display of flowers and remain disease-free.

Which? Tech magazine

We bust through the jargon to bring you the latest features, product info and scam alerts. £49 a year, cancel anytime

Sign up now

Breathe new life into your outside spaces. Sign up for our Gardening newsletter, it's free monthly

Key facts

PLANT TYPE Shrub

POSITION Full sun or part shade

SOIL Fertile, moist but well-drained

How to grow roses: month by month

Best rose varieties

Which? members can log in now to see the full results and detailed reviews of our Best Buy varieties. If you’re not a member, join Which? to get instant access.

Full testing results for roses

Scented bush roses

Repeat-flowering bush roses

Climbing roses

Patio climbing roses for pots

Scented climbing roses

Roses as gifts

Roses for small spaces

25% off Which? Gardening

Pay £36.75 for the first year and get the garden you want for less

Get this offer

What does repeat flowering mean?

The term ‘repeat-flowering’ refers to a rose that flowers in flushes. Almost all roses have a large, initial flush of flowers in June that will last into July. A rose that doesn’t repeat-flower will then just stop flowering until the next year, while many ‘repeat-flowering’ roses goon to have a smaller, second flush in late August or September. Some roses repeat-flower more often, so the blooms come in waves from early to late summer, while a few, such as our Best Buys, carry on blooming in smaller numbers but pretty much continuously throughout the season

Caring for your plants

Planting

Bare-root roses cost less than potted roses and are grown without using peat. Plant bare-root roses between November and March. Plants in containers can be planted at any time of year when the soil isn’t frozen.

Plant in well-drained soil in sun or light shade. Dig a large hole that will fit the whole of the roots easily. The graft union (where the stem is joined to the roots) should be at, or slightly below, soil level.

Feeding and watering

Feed roses in spring with a balanced fertiliser, such as Growmore, or a high potassium feed such as rose food. Water plants during long, dry spells.

Discover our Best Buy watering cans

Deadheading

Deadhead the faded flowers regularly by cutting back to the first leaf below the flower. 

How to prune roses

Bush roses, including hybrid teas and floribundas, should be pruned in February or early March. Start by removing all weak, diseased, crossing and dead stems. Then declutter what's left by thinning some of the remaining stems - taking out the thinnest and congested, opening up the centre of the bush for light to penetrate. The remaining stems can be shortened by pruning to a third of their length to an outward-facing bud. The height of the cut will determine the eventual height of the plant. Mulch with garden compost or spent mushroom compost and feed afterwards.

Try out our Best Buy secateurs

Climbing roses from ramblers in that they have a semi-permanent framework for a number of years which is tied in and trained with occasional stems pruned out and replaced with younger stronger taking the place of older weaker growth. Flowering lateral shoots are produced from this framework. As flowers finish they are deadheaded and any time from the autumn to late winter these laterals can thinned if congested, and pruned back to one or two buds from which they will shoot and flower again.

Rambling roses flower on long whippy growth made last year. It’s easy to see what has flowered and what hasn’t – especially when the leaves are off and the plant is naked. The flowered stems have the remnants of flowering stalks or show lateral branching, whereas the new non-flowered wood will be long, branchless and arching. Rambler can be pruned any time from now through the winter before the plants starts to grow again. If there are hips present perhaps you delay proceedings until these have been taken by the birds.  Cut off all the flowered wood right down into the body of the rose until you come to the main stem or a worthwhile non-flowered shoot. Now and again a flowered stem may be taken right down to the ground so that regeneration takes place from ground level. Once all the flowered shoots have been removed, thin out the weakest of the non-flowered shoots leaving only the strongest stems. Tie these in along with the framework. If you want a billowing plant that spills out then only tie the framework in leaving the rest free. 

If there isn’t sufficient non flowered wood for next year’s flowers, then retain the strongest of the non- flowered wood, shortening them to the appropriate height. These will still have some flowers but not the long arching trusses that you’ll see on the non-flowered stems that are kept whole.

How to grow roses in pots

Use a large pot of around 45cm diameter and height, filled with a Best Buy compost for containers and mixed with a Best Buy controlled-release fertiliser at the recommended rate. 

For climbing patio roses, place the support, such as an obelisk or wigwam, over the plant straight away, before the shoots start to grow, and secure it in place with hooks or pegs if needed. Keep plants well watered after planting.

Water regularly during the growing season so the compost doesn’t dry out.

Train main stems of climbing patio roses by pulling them down at a low angle, winding them around the support and tying them in place. Tie in flowering shoots as they grow if needed. 

From the second year onwards, weed pots and topdress them each spring with more compost mixed with controlled-release fertiliser.

Prune in late winter, reducing flowered shoots by two thirds. Tie in new growth. If older plants get too bushy, cut out older stems at ground level.

Learn about our Best Buy garden irrigation systems

How to grow roses from cuttings

Internodal, nodal, soft-wood or semi-ripe cuttings can be taken from roses during the summer. 

1. Tidy up the bottom of the cutting by using a sharp knife or a pair of secateurs, cutting above a node (the point where the leaves join the stem) for internodal cuttings and just below a node for nodal cuttings. 

2. Trim the leaflets to minimise water loss and insert the cutting into a pot.

Common growing problems

Blackspot

Rose blackspot is extremely common and widespread. The symptoms are dark spots with yellow edges, or more irregular dark blotches, visible on both sides of the leaf. Later, the leaves may turn yellow and fall early. In a bad year this can happen very quickly, and lead to complete defoliation. Repeated or severe attacks can seriously weaken plants, though the disease is rarely fatal

The fungus which creates the spots produces spores that can be spread by rain splash and air currents, or by gardeners. It develops most quickly in warm, wet conditions. The spores overwinter mostly on the shoots but some overwinter on fallen leaves, and can survive in soil.

Pruning in spring will remove many of the overwintering spores and reduce infection. Raking up leaves may help, but as spores are so prevalent it may not be worth the effort. If the disease appears in spring, picking off affected leaves can reduce the spread. Don’t bother, however, if the disease does not occur until late summer. You can also treat with fungicide.

Powdery mildew

Powdery-mildew symptoms appear mainly on the younger shoots. The leaves become distorted and puckered, and buds fail to open. A greyish, powdery deposit appears on the leaves, stems or buds, and can turn the whole shoot a dirty white 

Powdery mildew tends to be worse when plants are short of water, and where air circulation is poor – so plants growing against walls are particularly vulnerable. Water well in dry spells but avoid wetting the leaves. Mulch in spring or autumn with soil improver when the soil is moist. It is better to grow susceptible climbers on pergolas or arches, rather than walls or fences, to give better air circulation. Mildew can weaken roses, and ruin their appearance, but is unlikely to kill them.

Aphids

Squash any aphids as soon as you find them. In small numbers they do little harm, but they can occur in large masses on shoot tips and suck sap from the vulnerable young growth. This deprives the developing shoot of water and nutrients, so buds fail to open and foliage is distorted. 

Rust

Rust may appear as small, bright-orange powdery bumps on the underside of the leaf. However, this early stage of the disease is often overlooked, and it is not noticed until later. 

Yellow-orange pustules appear in late summer on the undersides of the leaves, often matched by yellow spots on the upper surface. The pustules then turn black, and the whole leaf may die and fall early.

The spores overwinter mainly on fallen leaves and are spread to the new leaves in spring by rain splash or on the wind. Some spores may also survive on other debris, on shoots and in the soil.

Look out for the bright-orange spots early in the season, and remove affected leaves. Collecting up fallen leaves in autumn is also worthwhile. You could spray with a suitable fungicide.

How we test roses

We planted three plants of each variety at the Which? Gardening magazine trial garden in Capel Manor College in north London and grew them for two years. We fed all the plants with Vitax Q4, in spring in both years of the trial and we sprayed all the plants with fungicide to give some initial protection as they came into leaf. They weren’t sprayed after that so we could see the differences in susceptibility to disease. We kept records throughout the two growing seasons, making regular notes on when the plants were in flower and their health and vigour. We evaluated the scent at different times of the day and in different weather conditions, and asked several different assessors to smell them so we could get a range of opinions.