For the Love of Roses:

As a grower and a designer, I am always searching for something new and unusual for the garden.  This time I found it by looking back in time.  We at Dufferin Garden Centre are pleased and excited to add antique or Old World Roses to our extensive list of container grown roses.

These roses are those classes of roses which were known before 1867, the date of the first hybrid tea rose.

Overshadowed by modern hybrids, old roses have been overlooked for a long time, but now they are starting to reclaim their place in the garden.  Historic interest, colour, fragrance and form make old roses as indispensable in today's gardening as they have been for centuries.  The best part about these roses is that they are low maintenance.  Before the hybridation of modern roses, early roses flourished in gardens with minimal care.  Some old roses actually prefer a minimum of pruning.  Specimen have been found in old cemeteries and abandoned homesteads surviving without care from human hands.

The old roses colours tend to be muted and pastel providing an old world romantic atmosphere to the garden.  Inherent beauty of form, handsome foliage and attractive hips in the fall complete the charm of the old roses.  The concentrated 'true rose' fragrance of old roses provides a richness and diversity of fragrance found in no other rose.

Old roses are the ultimate antique...a living testament to history and our quest for beauty in the garden.

We welcome you to visit the Dufferin Garden Centre, attend our seminars this Saturday during the Rose Festival and view these wonderful, colourful plants.  Pick up our pink 'For the Love of Roses' brochure for a list of the roses available for 2010.  Included are planting instructions, care and pruning tips to allow you to get the most out of your roses.

Donna Zarudny,
Owner, Dufferin Garden Centre

Other Roses Available:

Miniature Roses:
- they are ideal as a border in gardens or in a container on any patio or deck
- the blooms are perfectly formed and abundantly produced on healthy foliage

Carpet Roses:
- these roses are world famous as superb ground cover roses, ideal for slopes and mass plantings
- they are disease resistant and long blooming with a mild fragrance, blooming from summer to fall

Climbing Roses:
- climbers are the most dramatic way to enjoy roses in your landscape
- climbing roses can be incorporated by using arbors, gazebos, lattice covered walls, trellis and fences
- in the spring, apply 2-3 shovels of compost around the base of each climbing rose

Hybrid Tea Roses:
- hybrid teas are considered the most popular rose group with large shapely classic blooms that are borne on a single stem
- they are reliable bloomers with continuous large flowers and rich spicy fragrances
- regular maintenance and winter protection are required

Floribunda Roses:
- these roses are usually shorter than hybrid teas and best known for their profuse production of blooms exploding with colour
- they are great for use in borders and low hedges and are always a colourful addition to any garden
- regular maintenance and winter protection are required

Grandiflora Roses:
- these roses have larger flowers and are borne in clusters and are usually very fragrant making them ideal plants for beside patios or for cut flowers
- regular maintenance and winter protection are required

Rugosa Roses:
- ideal for screening or hedge plantings are tolerant of road salt and do not require winter protection
- their strong fragrance makes them an asset to any garden as well as their rose hips for winter interest or tea

Shrub Roses:
- they need minimal care and are environmentally friendly
- they are disease resistant, flower repeatedly throughout the summer, require minimal pruning and come in a variety of colours and sizes

English Shrub Rose:  David Austin Series:
- these roses bring back the fragrance and beauty of the roses of the past while providing wide colour range and summer long flowering of a modern rose
- winter protection may be required depending on location

Shrub Roses:  Explorer Series:
- these roses were developed at the Plant Research Centre in Ottawa
- all of them are named after famous Canadian explorers

Shrub Roses:  Parkland Series:
- they were developed at the Agriculture Canada Research Station in Morden Manitoba
- these roses thrive in a harsh prairie winter of zone 3

Selected Roses in our Online Gallery