If you’ve ever grown a modern rose, you’ve probably wondered why some people are still nervous about growing roses? We’re talking about that whiff of fear that still lingers, inherited from a past time when there were rose specimens so fussy and delicate that they could make a stately home’s head gardener weep. Happily since then, a lot has happened. Modern rose breeders are a practical bunch, and they’ve tackled the issues that needed to be dealt with. Thanks to them we now have a list of care-free options to choose from, with the best of these being the Flower Carpet range of roses. Having said that, you do want to keep your eyes open as you pick your rose, so here are some tips for choosing roses…

1. Feast your eyes. The reason you’re planting a rose – let’s be honest – is likely to be all about the flower so take a good look around and see what leaps up and hits you in the heart. This is not an overstatement because roses are special: maybe because they are so entwined in the culture that washes around us? So make a short list of rose crushes then move onto the next step…

2. Background checks. Due diligence never hurt anyone and where roses are concerned, this is definitely worth doing. And that’s because there are still a lot of lovely old fussy roses out there being offered to people who don’t mind a challenge and uncertainty. What you want to do is take a look at each of your rose options in turn, checking that they don’t have a reputation for being difficult. Look for words like, robust, easy-care, lush, disease free, bullet-proof, and (if you’re a very new gardener) idiot-proof. If it turns out that your candidate has a dodgy performance report card, don’t be distracted by descriptions like gorgeous, delicious, luscious because if you have trouble getting the rose to grow well, you’ll probably never have a chance to see a bloom.

3. Take a hot tip. And now for the best tip of all when it comes to choosing roses. It comes from the people whose roses these are, but know that these roses have also been industry awarded and have a significant, happy following amongst un-washed gardeners around the world. Here it comes… plant a Flower Carpet rose. More specifically, plant one of the Flower Carpet® ground cover roses, or one of the Flower Carpet® fragrant shrub roses (also known as the Showpiece™ Roses in the southern hemisphere and Canada). There are five different colour options available in the fragrant shrub roses, and a further twelve amongst the ground cover roses to choose from – in other words, oodles of choice. Flower Carpet ground cover roses grow wider rather than taller, producing hundreds of smaller blooms and the Flower Carpet shrub roses are a bushy shape and produce larger blooms that are fragrant. Whichever version, Flower Carpet roses have a proven track record for being disease resistant, lush, easy to grow and producing many flowers. Of course this makes sense because they’ve all been bred by Noack Rosen (Germany) which is a hugely respected family of plant breeders.