When envisioning a garden, pictures of roses billowing over walls and arbors often come to mind. Not too surprising, since as long as there have been gardens, roses have been a part of them. The cultivation of roses began sometime around the year 3000 B.C. in China, and Herodotus wrote of damask roses growing in King Midas's gardens in Macedonia. Yet most homeowners are afraid to grow roses, or if they have, gave up after the bushes succumbed to some mysterious ailment or harsh winter. But not all roses deserve to be labeled as difficult.
Many roses are actually quite hardy and resistant to disease.
It's because Hybrid Tea roses dominated the nursery trade for decades that roses acquired a reputation as being the divas of the garden. Prior to the mid-19th century, most roses only bloomed once every spring. While gardeners accepted this fact for most flowering shrubs, including lilacs and azaleas, they wanted more from roses. Hybrid Tea roses were introduced in the 1860's and became all the rage because they were the first roses to bloom reliably from spring through the fall. Long-stemmed with perfectly formed buds, Hybrid Teas look wonderful in a vase, but the plants themselves look somewhat out of place and awkward in the garden.