The subject of many a poem, there is no flower more romantic and nostalgic as a rose! The blooms and scent have captivated gardeners for years, making them the most popular cut-flower in the world. Roses have had their drawbacks in the garden. Aside from the dreaded thorns, roses a hundred years ago were high-maintenance and prone to disease.

Lucky for the modern gardener, many efforts have been made to breed a better rose, preserving the beauty of the rose while improving its disease resistance. While there are many options out there, Colonial Gardens focuses on carrying varieties that our customers love along with newer, improved varieties. Here we go over several series of roses that we carry and their particular benefits to help you choose the right one for you.

Before we get started, here are some basic rose care requirements that most every rose needs:

• Plant in full sun conditions, at least 6 to 8 hours of sunshine.
• Plant in well-drained, neutral soil.
• Prune back in the late winter to keep a manageable size and provide enough airflow through foliage to prevent fungal diseases.
• Many modern roses are resistant to diseases, but are attractive to pests like Japanese beetles. You can use a fungicide to prevent common unsightly fungi from plagueing your roses.
• Flowering is energy intensive! Use a rose-specific fertilizer like Rose-tone from Espoma Organic to give your plants the energy they need.

Onto the varieties:

Knock-Out Roses

This family of roses revolutionized the rose market over 20 years ago by introducing an easy-care rose. These shrub roses are bred for disease resistance, as well as repeat blooms throughout the summer. As part of its easy care, these roses are self-cleaning, which means that they don’t require dead-heading to produce more flowers. More recently, the Knock-Out series released the “Meet Petite!” version of the Knock-Out rose, bred to be smaller and more versatile than the standard size–perfect for containers.

Knock-Out roses are a good choice for easy care, but not the best option for people looking for a strongly scented rose, or a traditional rose bloom. Our options for 2026 include the classic Knock-Out, the Double Knock-Out, the yellow Easy Bee-zy, Orange Glow, and Coral.

True Bloom Roses

A more recent addition to the rose market, True Bloom roses boast the easy-care elements of Knock-Out while providing a more densely-petaled flower on a compact plant. The flowers of this rose series, which come in many different colors, are more similar to peonies. True Bloom roses are trialed in different spots around the country to test its resiliency to different climates and disease. True Bloom Roses are a good choice for easy-care roses that require no deadheading, and sport more attractive and fragrant blooms than the Knock-Out. Our varieties this year include the red True Passion, and several pink varieties including True Bliss, True Serenity, and True Inspiration.

David Austin Roses

The prettiest roses on the market? That award has to go to David Austin Roses, a series of English roses bred for beauty and fragrance in the English countryside. These roses combine the traits of Old Roses like scents with the repeat blooming of hybrid tea rose. The result is a series of downright gorgeous shrub and climbing roses that feature large, heavily-scented roses. The varieties we carry have been tested and proven to perform in our area by our growers. While they tend to be disease resistant, David Austin roses typically need deadheading to produce repeat blooms.
We have expanded our varieties in 2026 to include:

• Red: Tess of the d’Urbervilles
• Pink: Benjamin Britten, Boscobel, Eustacia Vye, Gabriel Oak, Gertrude Jeckyll, Olivia Rose Austin, Queen of Sweden
• Yellow: Golden Celebration, Imogen, Nye Bevan, Teasing Georgia, The Poet’s Wife
• Orange, Apricot: Bring Me Sunshine, Carding Mill, Lady of Shalott, Vanessa Bell
• Whites & Creams: Claire Austin, Desdemona

Groundcover Roses

Drift Roses combine the best traits of groundcover roses and miniature roses and feature a compact size with disease resistance and repeat blooms. These roses stay low to the ground and can be an excellent option for filling beds and controlling erosion on slopes. They come in a variety of colors. Drift roses and Flower Carpets are a great option for groundcover that adds color.

Proven Winners

Proven Winners is a selective brand of plants, known for their exceptional performance and unique varieties. Proven Winners trials their plants to ensure the top quality across their selection. New varieties of roses are released by Proven Winners every year and in 2026, we are carrying Oso Easy Red Stripe and the climbers Rise Up Ringo and Rise Up Lilac Days.