Everything is coming up roses

 To enjoy the widest choice, you may need to go to a specialist rose grower and many are advertised at the back of gardening magazines.

 Autumn is the best time to buy roses, when the selection is widest. You can buy them as a bare-root bush, which is lifted at the nursery in the dormant season (October-March) and sold to the customer over the counter or by post.

 Make sure bare-root bushes don’t dry out. If they seem dry, the roots may need plunging in a bucket of water and covering until you are ready to plant the bush.

 Some bare-root plants are pre-packaged for sale and will have moist peat around the roots and come in a polythene bag in a box.

 These are usually reasonably priced and easily available, but don’t keep them too warm as this can lead to premature growth and shrivelled stems.

 Most of us will scour our garden centres for a container-grown rose, which can provide instant colour, and we can see what we are getting.

 The type of rose you need will depend on where you want to plant it as there are seven groups, from huge bushes to miniatures and ground cover varieties.

 Hybrid tea roses are the most popular and come in bush and standard form, bearing medium or large velvety flowers of moderate or strong fragrance.

 They appear in flushes throughout summer and autumn and can be outstanding, although many can be ruined by bad weather.

 Good varieties include the richly scented red rose ‘Alec’s Red’, which grows to 3ft and has good disease resistance, ‘Dawn Chorus’, which bears deep orange blooms, or the yellow ‘Grandpa Dickson’, a free-flowering plant with good rain resistance.

 Next come the floribundas, which are cluster-flowered bushes. Many of these bloom throughout summer and autumn, providing more colour than hybrid teas while also being harder and easier to care for in wet weather.

 Good choices include the hardy and highly fragrant ‘Arthur Bell’ with its large golden blooms and ‘Iceberg’ a tall, vigorous variety with big clusters of double white flowers.

 The patio rose group is generally made up of dwarf floribundas growing up to 45-55cm, providing a good display of flowers during

the season.

 Impressive varieties include ‘Top Marks’, a bright vermilion rose with long-lasting flowers and healthy foliage, and the peach-bloomed ‘Sweet Dream’, whose colour does not fade with age.

 Miniature roses, growing up to 45cm, are becoming more popular. These should be bought in pots – they don’t like root disturbance – and planted outdoors in spring, blooming from midsummer until the first frosts.

 Try ‘Fire Princess’, which is ideal for edging or growing as a pot plant and produces brilliant orange-red flowers, or ‘New Penny’, which has shining leaves and pink blooms.

 Ground cover roses are also increasing in popularity but you should check the expected height and spread before buying, as a plant may grow to up to 2m high.

 Spreading bushes such as ‘Bonica’ and ‘Rosy Cushion’ have arching stems which cover the soil, while others have stems that creep across the ground.

 If you need to fill a patch of ground between shrubs, try the carmine pink ‘Hertfordshire’. Covering a large area is best done with ‘Pheasant’ (Palissade rose), which can spread across more than 7 sq metres, producing double deep pink fragrant blooms.

 Then there are the climbers and ramblers, often used to cover a wall or screen, or trained up over a front door. Again, you need to choose carefully and don’t expect too much in the first year.

 If you want a huge rambler look for ‘Bobbie James’, which produces creamy white scented flowers, while popular climbers include ‘Danse Du Feu’, whose clusters of orange-red blooms appear well into the autumn.

 Finally there is the shrub rose category, although these only bloom once and are often considered too old-fashioned for the contemporary garden.

 But if you want an alternative to rhododendrons or lilac there are dainty shrubs such as ‘Cecile Brunner’. Start looking now – and you’re bound to find a rose that suits you.