People buy roses for many reasons. A rose can be alluring simply for its color. A rose can also be purchased for its historical value, its disease resistance or for having a particular shade. Some rose choices offer petals that never fade, multiple flowering cycles per year or abundant flowering. Rose varieties are often purchased for their strong or pastel colors, their unique petal shapes or the visual texture of the petals. Some are also purchased for their exceptional scents.
Rose flowers convert alcohols and sugars into fragrant scents to attract pollinators. These volatile organic compounds create sweet, spicy and fruity scents. About 55% of roses release these fragrant molecules, while 25% discharge none and therefore have no scent. The remaining 20% release many times more molecules, making them intensely fragrant. These are the roses that people seek if they want to immerse themselves in that sweet scent that only roses can deliver.
There are three types of rose groupings according to the American Rose Society. Wild Roses,
Old Garden Roses in existence before 1867 and Modern Roses that did not exist before 1867. There are different types of roses within these groupings based on some of their predominant characteristics. It is easy to identify the defining traits of climbing roses, miniature roses, shrub roses, hedge roses and ground cover roses.
Some modern roses have classification names that highlight their predominant characteristics. Floribunda roses are compact, bushy and continuously flowering. Hybrid Tees are tall and have upright stems and single blooms. Grandiflora roses are tall and bushy and have clusters of large blooms.
All of the different categories, groupings and classifications of the roses have intensely fragrant species or cultivar options. Once a type of rose is chosen for the characteristics and growing conditions, an extremely fragrant variety can most likely be found.
Below are eight examples of intensely fragrant roses that can be grown in many different conditions:
Rosa “Gertrude Jekyll” is often considered one of the most fragrant of all the climbing roses. It is a short climber with canes reaching from five to eight feet tall. A single pink bloom produces a strong classic sweet Old Rose fragrance that can perfume a small garden or room.
Flower Carpet® Amber is an intensely sweet aromatic groundcover rose. It produces a blanket of semi-double peach-colored blossoms which scent walkways and open areas of the garden from early spring into the fall.
“Sweet Chariot” is a Miniature/Patio rose known for its highly fragrant scent which is often referred to as Damask-like, a group of Old-World roses renowned for having some of the world’s most intense sweet and spicy aromas. Its cascading one-to-two-foot stems support multiple magenta flowers, making it the perfect scented rose to grow in a container or hanging basket.
“Chrysler Imperial” rose produces an exceptionally fragrant dark red flower with 45 to 50 petals, which is an unusually high number for a hybrid tea rose. The long-stemmed blooms make excellent long-lasting cut flowers which will fill a room with citrus undertones and clove.
“Honey Perfume” is a well-branched upright shrub with dark green glossy foliage. It produces ruffled double-bloom of four-to-five-inch flowers in at least two blooming cycles per year. The yellow-apricot-colored flowers have a strong spicy fragrance with hints of cinnamon, clove, nutmeg and allspice.
“Koco Loko” is a floribunda rose with a moderate scent. It is included here because of its pleasant fragrance, which is described as crisp, clean and slightly clove-like. It also produces dramatic flowers that start with mocha-colored buds, open lavender/brown and fade to a soft creamy orange/chocolate color.
“Pure Perfume” is a shrub rose that has dense dark green foliage that makes it suitable for use as a hedge or tall border plant. It produces highly fragrant classic white flowers which have over 100 petals as an added benefit. They create blooms that give a strong scent of grapefruit, citrus and other sweet smells.
“Perfume Factory” is a Hybrid Tea rose that was introduced in 2020. It features four-inch white blooms that smell like grapefruit. There is no complex fusion of fragrances. This rose is an example of how modern technology can even shape the natural world, especially if you like grapefruit.
Although only 20% of roses are super fragrant, there are still a lot of varieties to choose from. A great way to prune back the choices is to visit a local rose garden or nursery when in full bloom. There you will be hot on the scent of finding a fragrant rose that is right for you.
Daniel O’Donnell is the co-owner and operator of an organic landscape design/build company in Fremont. Chrysalis-Gardens.com
