Ever wondered why roses have always had such a big fan club? Or why the rose is cast as the hero flower in so many fairy tales? And why private and public gardens are created to be filled with just roses? (Not to be rude but have you ever heard of a daisy garden?) Yes, the rose is the accepted queen of flowers and this is why roses are for everyone…

1. Roses have lovely faces. It’s probably hard-wired in us, that we feel happier looking into a rose bloom. It doesn’t matter if it has an open face with a ring of golden stamens, or it’s a fully ruffled like a cabbage – a rose bloom stops us for a moment and makes us feel wonderful. There are rose bushes which produce several massive blooms, and others that cover themselves in hundreds of tiny cherry sized flowers. And it’s this variety of rose flower forms that makes roses all the more appealing simply because there’s a rose to suit everyone’s taste.

2. Roses come in many colours. From arctic white through creams, pinks, yellows, oranges, reds and violet-blues: there’s a colour option for anyone. Not to mention roses that have candy striped petals or those that change colour while they’re blooming on the bush. Roses are the flower that gives us a full box of watercolours to work with when playing around with a bit of garden planting design.

3. Rose bushes come in different formats, which is incredibly valuable for anyone who plants a garden. There are roses that are low and mat forming (Flower Carpet® roses), those that grow into mounded shrubs (shrub roses), others that are grafted and trained into topiary shapes (tree or standard roses), and others that grow like vines. Put them all together and you could in theory be immersed in roses with blooms at your feet, at your waist, at face level and above.  

4. Roses perfume the air. Just as roses can look very different, from their flower through to the form of the plant they grow into, they also have different degrees of scent. For some, they give the breeze a light crisp scent while for others the fragrance is rich, fruity with spicy overtones. It all comes down to personal taste, but like everything to do with roses, it’s what helps make them as universally loved as they are.