Our picks for the best roses for Australia. Roses make a wonderful addition to most garden styles and grow extremely well in Victoria’s climate. Despite popular belief they are also easy to look after, providing you follow a few of their simple needs. Roses like ample drainage, lots of sun and when it comes to pruning – treat ’em mean and keep ’em keen! Roses LOVE being pruned hard and will bloom better if pruned correctly.

Although it’s winter at the time of writing, it is the most popular time to buy roses. This isn’t because they’re producing an abundance of beautiful blooms: oh no, quite the opposite! Roses are dormant during winter and it’s during this time we gardeners do most of their maintenance. They’re trimmed back to a manageable size ready to burst to life in spring, making them easier to transport and plant, and are often sold cheaply bare rooted.

More about bare rooted roses at the end of this article.

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Don’t forget, winter is the best time to plan and prepare your garden for the warmer growing months. So now is the best time to prepare your soil, get mulching and if you’re really in need of help, book a Free Garden Design with Chris!

 

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Top 10 Roses for Australia

1. ‘Iceberg’ Rose
2. ‘Mr Lincoln’ Rose
3. ‘Just Joey’ Rose
4. ‘Blue Moon’ Rose
5. ‘Camp David’ Rose
6. ‘Friesia’ Rose
7. ‘Pascali’ Rose
8. ‘Perfume Delight’ Rose
9. ‘Gold Bunny’ Rose
10. ‘Peace’ Rose

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Bonus: Quirky Coloured Roses

If you’re after some roses with a little more pizazz, we have just the ones you! The result of some true artistic collaboration between breeders and mother nature, these roses are multi-coloured or have interesting patterns on their petals. Although they’re not in our Top 10 selection of Bare Root Roses, they’re still some favourites of ours for their unique looks.

View all multi coloured roses available here.

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Our Top 10 Roses for Australia!

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1. ‘Iceberg’ Roses

It’s not the most popular rose in Australia for no reason! Iceberg roses are a crisp white floribunda rose. Floribunda meaning it flowers in abundance! Being one of the longest flowering roses of all, large clusters of white blooms cover the shrub for many months of year. It is a very hardy rose, tolerating poor soils and most climatic conditions. Iceberg roses have no fragrance.

Back to list: Top 10 Roses for Australia

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 2. ‘Mr Lincoln’ Roses

The ‘Mr Lincoln’ rose is a beautifully vigorous rose with bright red blossoms held high on long stems, and a strong sweet fragrance. The petals form a tight centre, gradually unfurling into a rich, red bloom. It’s the classic single, straight-stemmed rose given to that special someone, so it’s great for use as a cut flower. ‘Mr Lincoln’ roses are used in bouquets and floral arrangements and are a must in the cottage or rose garden.

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3. ‘Just Joey’ Roses

Very large apricot orange blooms with slightly frilled petals belong to the gorgeous ‘Just Joey’ rose. These roses can be detected from metres away by their sweet fragrance and are another popular choice for those wanting cut flowers at home, or a soft classic colouring in the garden.

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4. ‘Blue Moon’ Roses

The ‘Blue Moon’ rose is a soft silvery purple, reminiscent of the cool blue moon which it is named after. This gorgeous rose is another perfect choice for cut flowers and for a formal or cottage garden where it’s important that any colour used isn’t overwhelming. ‘Blue Moon’ roses are also highly fragrant!

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5. ‘Camp David’ Roses

‘Camp David’ roses are another popular red rose, but unlike the ‘Mr Lincoln’ rose the petals unfurl more evenly, creating a bold, rounded red bloom. This sturdy Hybrid Tea rose is tolerant of less than favourable weather conditions making it perfect for Melbournians! ‘Camp David’ are long flowering, often repeat flowering from spring through to late autumn.

 

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6. ‘Friesia’ Roses

The ‘Friesia’ rose is another in the floribunda family just like the ‘Iceberg’ rose, but unlike the ‘Iceberg’, ‘Friesia’ possess a heavenly fragrance best described as a mixture of jasmine, patchouli and ylang-ylang. The vibrant yellow blooms repeatedly flower for much of the year, giving a sunny lift to your garden!

 

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7. ‘Pascali’ Roses

No other rose oozes elegance and sophistication than that of the ‘Pascali’ rose. It is a stunning Hybrid Tea rose that forms a beautifully full white bloom with the slightest tinge of pink in the depths of its petals. ‘Pascali’ roses are an ideal choice rose for the classic white wedding or formal occasion.

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8. ‘Perfume Delight’ Roses

The hottest pink of all the roses, it’s a wonder the ‘Perfume Pink’ rose wasn’t called the Barbie rose! This pretty pink rose is not only a knockout for both colour and form but, as its name suggests, has a delightful perfume!

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9. ‘Gold Bunny’ Roses

Throughout the warmer months your ‘Gold Bunny’ rose bushes will be a sea of golden yellow blooms that gradually fade to a light lemon colour. Gold Bunny roses are one of the first roses to bloom in early spring and continue flowering until late autumn. Their lightly fragrant flowers form in clusters, as floribundas are known to do, and have the hardiness to match.

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10. ‘Peace’ Roses

A fun multi-tonal rose like those in our quirky coloured rose section, ‘Peace’ roses reflect the colours of a soft spring sunrise, with splashes of pink, yellow, orange and off-white. ‘Peace’ roses have a sweet fragrance to match their playful colours. 

 

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Buying and planting bare rooted roses

Roses can be planted at any time of year, and each season has its benefits. Buying them in spring and summer means you’ll often have blooms already on the plant.

But the reason we sell so many roses in winter, even when they’re not in flower, is because winter is also bare root season! This is the time of year when popular deciduous plants (and some very particular evergreen ones) are sold with their roots bared to the world. This means no pots and no soil.

Plants handled and sold in this form are much cheaper to process, these discounts being passed onto the customer. So there’s no better time than in the cold months to get BARE ROOTED and get those roses you’ve been wanting for cheap! Check out our full range of bare rooted roses here!

Once you’ve purchased bare rooted roses, the next step is to plant them. It may sound simple but some customers find they’re a little confused when they bring their freshly bundled roses back home, open them up and they’re met with a tangle of roots.

Not to worry! We have a guide to planting your bare root roses from soil requirements and tools right down to exactly how it should be placed in the soil.

Click here for tips, tricks and everything you need to know for planting bare root roses!

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If you enjoyed the Top 10 Roses for Australia…

Here are some more garden articles and plant fact sheets you may like:

• Our guide to selecting roses, with our 300 plus available varieties sorted by colour and more
• Our guide to pruning page, with a section specifically on pruning roses
• This year’s list of bare rooted roses (generally available June-August)
• How to plant a bare rooted rose
• All about bare rooted plants
• Other bare rooted plants available this winter