Easy roses to grow

• Written by Holly Hughes on April 08, 2022

Iconic, fragrant, and with a myriad of varieties to choose from, roses aren’t just the crowning glory of a Valentine’s bouquet – they’re the show stopper of many home gardens too. There are so many benefits to growing your own roses at home – from their sumptuous fragrance, to their dramatic spectacle as a climbing vine, to the small matter of having beautiful flowers to pick as you wish and fill your home with.

However, growing them can sometimes be tricky. To counteract this, centuries of cultivation have produced easy growing varieties that are disease-resistant and low maintenance – perfect for every gardening ability and location.

Let’s take a look at the easiest roses to grow and some top tips to make the cultivation process as quick and easy as possible.

What are the easiest roses to grow?

As a general rule, for beginner gardeners or anyone looking for easy roses to grow, it is always better to choose newer varieties. This is because these shrubs have been bred specifically to circumvent any potential growing difficulties.

While older roses are spectacular to look at, their beauty comes at the cost of higher maintenance and more health hazards. New cultivars are generally disease-resistant, low-maintenance, produce more flowers for longer seasons and are even thorn-free in some cases. Here’s some of the easiest.

Little Mischief

This rose is the ideal, easy-to-grow plant for beginner gardeners who don’t have a lot of space. Little Mischief is small but mighty with sensational, deep pink blooms and a delectable fragrance. Hardy and resilient, one of the other delights of this easy plant is watching its magenta hues fade to a lighter pink as the season progresses.

Knock Out

As one of the best-known varieties that is beloved both for its cherry-red flowers and how easy it is to grow, Knock Outs produce long-lasting blooms throughout the season. Disease resistant and with the potential to grow quite large, it’s easy to see why this has become the most popular rose bush in North America. 

Fast growing rose bushes

If you simply can’t wait to reap the benefits of your planting (and have already exhausted the easy option of having sumptuous bouquets of roses delivered to your door with flowery delivery services like 1800Flowers or SendFlowers), the good news is there are several quick-growing and easy varieties.

New Dawn and Ramblin’ Red are two of the fastest-growing climbing roses. New Dawn regularly grows 15 to 25 feet tall with full pink blooms, making it the perfect choice for any gardener looking for an easy and speedy climbing shrub for a trellis or wall.

For a hardy, disease-resistant and wondrously red option, Ramblin’ Red, is another rapid climber, growing to 8 feet in a single season and erupting in scarlet blooms in the summertime.

Learn how to prune and trim these fast growers for even better results here.

Low-maintenance roses

Minimal effort with maximum results is the desired outcome for most busy gardeners. The following variety is wonderfully low-maintenance so, no matter how chaotic your life is, or how bad your soil might be, this plant is hardy and independent enough to easily survive.

Rosa rugosa

Fondly known as the beach rose for its ability to tolerate poor soils – particularly very salty soils – Rosa rugosa is an old reliable for any gardener looking for easy care rose options. Withstanding high winds, drought, and poor soil, this beach rose is ideal for any street-facing gardens dealing with road salt or pollution.

So low-maintenance is this variety that it does equally well as a wild shrub with only occasional pruning to remove dead wood.

How to care for roses

Roses are hungry plants that demand full sunlight, rich soil, and regular watering. Pruning and trimming is also crucial for a bush to truly flourish as it encourages healthy growth, maintains the shrub shape and promotes flowering.

To give the best care to your roses, making sure you plant them in a location that gets daily sunlight – at least six hours – and has well-draining, nutrient-rich soil is vital. Once you plant them in the right place, looking after roses becomes easy.

Check out this article on pruning and trimming for more tips for easy rose care.

Where to get rose bouquets delivered to your door

Not green-fingered or don’t have the space for your own rose garden? Why not skip to the good bit and have a sumptuous bouquet delivered to your door every week, fortnight, or month with a subscription to sensational flower delivery services like MonthlyClubs or BloomsyBox.

Better again, embrace the joy of arranging your roses exactly how you wish with a subscription to EnjoyFlowers DIY Collection, which lets you create your own floral masterpiece from premium blooms.

However, if you’ve ever toyed with the idea of having your own rose garden, we hope this article has shown you how easy it can be and how many easy growing rose varieties there are out there. So, go on, get gardening!