Rose

Roses belong to the genus Rosa, a group of woody perennials in the family Rosaceae with well over a hundred species and countless garden cultivars bred over centuries.

Botany. Roses are typically thorned shrubs or climbers with compound leaves and five-petalled wild flowers; garden roses are often bred for many-petalled, high-centred blooms and repeat flowering. After flowering, many form fruits called hips, which are rich in vitamin C. Fragrance varies enormously between varieties, and not all modern roses are strongly scented.

Care basics. Most roses want full sun — ideally six or more hours — fertile, well-drained soil, and good air circulation to limit disease. Regular deadheading encourages repeat blooms in modern varieties, and annual pruning while dormant keeps plants healthy and shapely. They are hungrier and thirstier than many shrubs but reward the attention.

Meaning and tradition. No flower has a richer language. Broadly the rose signifies love and beauty, but colour refines it: red for romantic love, white for purity and new starts, yellow for friendship and joy, pink for gratitude and admiration. Numbers carry meaning too in some traditions, from a single rose for devotion to a dozen as a classic declaration. These are cultural conventions built up over a very long history.

Types worth knowing. Gardeners usually sort roses into groups: species (wild) roses, old garden roses prized for scent and form, and modern roses such as hybrid teas, floribundas, and easy-care shrub and landscape roses. Climbers and ramblers cover walls and arches. Choosing a disease-resistant variety suited to your climate makes rose growing far less demanding than its fussy reputation suggests.

As June's birth flower, the rose combines a rewarding, long-lived garden plant with the deepest symbolic vocabulary of any bloom.