Roses: How to Avoid Pruning

So you want to have roses but you're afraid of pruning? You shouldn't be, but we won't go into the reasons why. The fact is you're afraid, and that's that. We all have our irrational fears. The thing to do is to help you realize your goal: to have roses in your garden, not to make you feel guilty that you won't learn to prune.

If you want to have roses without pruning them, then you must first learn about the different types of roses you could have in your garden. Some folks like to condense roses down to hybrid teas, grandifloras and floribundas, miniature roses, and shrub roses. Besides being vastly incorrect, this is not at all helpful because it doesn't help us separate these so called "shrub roses" into categories where we can determine which do or do not need pruning. The fact is that there are so many different types of roses that often rosarians don't always get them all included in a list. But a fairly complete list is as follows:

Species roses, also known as Wild Roses. These are the roses that have been around for centuries. They are the ones growing in ditches and cemeteries.

Old Garden Roses are those introduced prior to 1867. Why 1867? Because that's when the first hybrid tea rose was introduced. These roses include Alba, Bourbon, (having to do with the Isle of Bourbon, not the liquor), Centifolia (cabbage roses), Damask, (smells fantastic!), Hybrid China, Hybrid Gallica, Moss, Noisette, Portland, Rugosa, Sertigera, and Tea.

Finally we have Modern Garden Roses which include the king, the hybrid tea, floribunda, grandifloras, polyantha, shrubs, miniatures and mini-roses, hybrid musk, and climbers which includes the hybrid multifloras also known as ramblers.