All Roses Explained

The rose.
It is the flower on every anniversary card, the one folks reach for to say I love you, I'm sorry, or congratulations. Almost everyone thinks they know it. But the truth is, the word rose does not point to one plant at all. It points to a whole family of wildly different characters, some tough as nails, some fussy as a house cat, some with a story hiding behind their petals that you would never guess just by looking. So here is the real question worth sitting with. Out of all of them, which rose is the right one for your garden, and how much do you actually know about the ones you think you recognize?
Start with the Hybrid Tea.
This is the rose most people picture the moment they hear the word. One large, perfectly shaped bloom, high and full in the center, sitting alone at the top of a long, straight stem. It is the classic florist rose, the one in the dozen your sweetheart brings home. Elegant, formal, and a little bit proud of itself.
But the most famous Hybrid Tea of all has a story that has almost nothing to do with romance. Its name is Peace, and it may be the best selling rose the world has ever known. In nineteen thirty nine, a French rose breeder named Francis Meilland had a promising new seedling on his hands, just as the Nazis were about to invade France. Fearing his life's work would be lost, he rushed cuttings out of the country. According to the story told for generations, one parcel was slipped onto the last plane out of France inside a diplomatic bag, and carried safely to a rose grower in Pennsylvania.