There are several people who enjoyed having a separate forum for antique roses in houzz, instead of a general rose forum. would it be possible to separate the two? is there enough interest to do that?

thanks in advance.

Brandon

Many of us, perhaps most of us, grow both antique and modern roses, so it doesn't seem practical to me.

You can always start a thread on antiques, then if it got to big, just start another. For example antiques June 2018, then the next month would be antiques July 2018 etc...They do that on other general forums

In a single, combined rose forum, antique rose fans will naturally gravitate toward threads about antique roses, and they can easily ignore threads about modern roses. The line is not drawn that clearly even on the Houzz site. Why are David Austin roses classified as antiques, for instance? Many modern rose fans grow David Austin roses. One of the recent threads in the Houzz Antique Roses forum is discussing Kordes' new Quick Silver climber,, and a thread in the other rose forum is discussing a tea rose. Isn't it better for all of us to unite in our love of roses and not worry about the lines that may divide us?

What traits separate "antique" roses from "modern" roses? I've never grown roses before, but I own some land that was the location of company housing for a lumber mill town over 100 years ago, and there are roses growing wild all over it. I plan to transplant some to my new home, and I also purchased some small roses that were on clearance this spring, so I'll be planting those as well. I'll be reading this forum to familiarize myself with roses, and I guess this question is a good place to start.

Radly

There are a few that separate antique and modern. One is strictly a time frame. old garden is considered classes that existed prior to 1867, and modern classes that didn't. Another is growth habit. The antique or old garden roses are usually more bushy and twiggy grower. The plants can often be bigger than modern as well. The modern roses have a tendency to be more upright, and strive for a more compact habit. There are overlaps in these categories, I am just stating generalities. Also flowering time can be a division. Most modern roses bloom from spring to frost. The old garden roses bloom throughout the growing season as well, but also there are classes that bloom only in the spring/early summer. The look of the flower are often different as well. moderns look more like the roses that you would get from the florists. Old garden or antiques are usually fuller, with quartered blooms.
I used a lot of generalities, and there are over laps between the groups in these generalities.

my blog has a lot of pictures of mostly old garden roses for an idea of what they look like in general.
allforroses.blogspot.com

I grow both, but did enjoy having them in separate forums, "at the other place." I'm comfortable either way. Lisa

I grow both and participated on both forums on the other place too but I like having one forum for just roses all together, I think it keeps people from being separated and you could be introduced to new roses that you would have never known about

I agree, Bonnie.

Best thing to do is start a thread within the rose forum with a header of "Antique Roses". It creates the separation you would like to help members focus in what interests them.
For example, the Daylily Forum has many member that may focus primarily on one particular type of daylily, like miniatures or spider forms, they start their threads but by keeping it within the Daylily Forum, it allows others to easily find it and join in, perhaps drawing in new interest.

Threads can be as long as you want, and there's a nice feature that lets you go to the first unread post instead of having to scroll through all of the stuff you've already read. Go to your personal settings ("site preferences") from the blue "person" icon on the far right of any page, scroll down to "Automatically jump to the first unread post in threads?" and choose "Yes."

RadlyRootbound said:What traits separate "antique" roses from "modern" roses? I've never grown roses before, but I own some land that was the location of company housing for a lumber mill town over 100 years ago, and there are roses growing wild all over it. I plan to transplant some to my new home, and I also purchased some small roses that were on clearance this spring, so I'll be planting those as well. I'll be reading this forum to familiarize myself with roses, and I guess this question is a good place to start.

Radly

Roses are generally separated into three groups -- Species, Old Garden Roses, and Modern Roses. There is still overlap, since some "Species-Hybrid" groups are put under "Modern Shrubs", and others within "Old Garden Roses". Basically, if the "Species-Hybrid" group existed prior to 1867, it would get lumped with the Old Garden Roses, but those groups which came after would be with the Modern Roses. So Spinosissima Hybrids are Old Garden Roses, while Rugosa Hybrids are Modern Roses. But then, the original parent species would be under Species......

Why 1867? That's the year 'La France' was introduced, which was later christened the first of a new group -- Hybrid Teas. There were hybrids between Teas and Hybrid Perpetuals before, but for whatever reason, 'La France' was deemed "something different" and a new class was created for it, and then came many more. But some other classes which originated after 1867 are embraced by Old Garden Rose lovers more than fans of Modern Roses, even if they are technically Modern Roses. These classes include Polyanthas and Hybrid Musks, as well as the various Ramblers which came later, like the Multifloras, Wichura(ia)nas, etc. But there are also Ramblers from the Old Garden Roses, like the Sempervirens, Ayrshires, Boursaults, etc. So while we think of Ramblers as being "old", some are technically modern.

Classic examples of Modern Roses include Hybrid Teas, Floribundas, and Grandifloras. When many rose people think of "modern roses", these are the types they have in mind. But, as I mentioned, Polyanthas are also "modern", even if they've been largely superseded by the Floribundas, which came after -- and from -- them. Most tend to have an "old look" about them. Hybrid Musks are also "modern" by classification, but typically deemed "old" by comparison, since they were essentially created to recall Noisettes, which are truly Old Garden Roses.

Then there's the term "antique", which to me includes many Old Garden Roses as well as Modern Roses, but technically also excludes some Old Garden Roses. Why? Because, to me, "antique" means something at least 100 years old. So if someone bred a Gallica in the 20th or 21st Century, it would be an Old Garden Rose by definition, because it belongs to an Old Garden Rose class, but not an "antique", because it's a new individual cultivar. And since 1867 was 151 years ago, 'La France' would be considered an "antique", but still classed as a Modern Rose.

Generally, on the GardenWeb forum, I saw the division between the Antique Roses and the general Roses as being based less on the strict ARS delineation between Old Garden Roses and Modern Roses and more about one group which tended to grow roses as "flowering shrubs or climbers", and another which tended to aim for growing roses for perfection of individual blooms. I also noticed that, in general, people new to roses would be on the general Roses forum, while the Antique Roses forum tended to be populated by people who already knew roses, and drifted to the older types after. People from the Antique Roses forum would frequently pop-in on the general Roses forum when a thread about roses in general came up -- such as questions about disease, pests, getting roses to grow, propagation, etc.

Here, I don't really have a preference either way. While it was nice having one area that tended to follow my own rose preferences, I often wondered if new rose people didn't venture into the Antique Roses forum because they thought it was intimidating, or if they simply didn't know what they were. And that would be a shame, because many of the oldies are actually easier to grow than what's found at a contemporary garden retailer. So I'll be interested to see how this format works.

:-)

~Christopher

@AquaEyes So, Christopher, if a modern breeder created a new rose by crossing two Old Garden Roses it would be an Old Garden Rose but not an Antique?

porkpal said:@AquaEyes So, Christopher, if a modern breeder created a new rose by crossing two Old Garden Roses it would be an Old Garden Rose but not an Antique?

Potentially, yes, but it would depend upon how the rose was registered. If the breeder decided to class it as simply "shrub", then it would technically be "modern". But there are a few breeders who have raised new Gallicas, Bourbons, Teas, Chinas, Noisettes, Mosses, Damask Perpetuals, etc. and registered them to their appropriate classes. In those cases, yes, the roses would be considered "Old Garden Roses" but not "antiques".

"Old Garden Roses" refers to the class of the rose, regardless of the age of the individual cultivar. To me, "antique" would refer to the age of the individual cultivar, regardless of the class.

:-)

~Christopher

Thank you, gar99010 and Christopher, for your excellent explanations. I see that the differentiation can be more complicated than I imagined, but at least I can say with some assurance that the roses growing wild on my land are "antique", and most likely "old garden" roses, if not absolutely positive about the latter. As for the roses I bought on clearance, I'm fairly sure they would be classified as "tea roses" (that's the smaller size, correct?), but other than that, I don't know. I was surprised, however, to find that only one of the three I purchased had a rosey fragrance, the other two having none; I was disappointed by this, and resolved, then, to only acquire roses in the future which are fragrant. This, to me, is a "defining feature" of a rose, and any rose worth its salt should be pleasantly fragrant. After all, as the old adage says, "A rose by any other name, smells as sweet", right? So in my book, if it doesn't smell sweet, it's just not a "real" rose, it's just a very pretty flower.

Radly

RadlyRootbound (I really like your screen name), a tea rose is actually an antique rose, the forebear of what are now known as hybrid tea roses. When you say "the smaller" I suspect you mean floribundas (Iceberg is an example). Here is a picture of a tea rose named Le Vesuve in my garden, and I think you'll agree that it's far from small!

ingrid_vc said: RadlyRootbound (I really like your screen name), a tea rose is actually an antique rose, the forebear of what are now known as hybrid tea roses. When you say "the smaller" I suspect you mean floribundas (Iceberg is an example). Here is a picture of a tea rose named Le Vesuve in my garden, and I think you'll agree that it's far from small!

Ingrid, thanks for the compliment; I like to come up with creative screen names that relate to the particular forum I'm joining.

I understand what you mean by "not small", and I wasn't as clear about what I meant by "small" as I could have been. What I should say is that, in my understanding, "tea roses" are more "delicate", the branches being finer and less thick than other roses, and the blooms being relatively smaller as well, and growing in bunches rather than singly. Of course, as I mentioned, I am by no means well versed in roses, so please correct me if I'm wrong; I'm here more to be educated than to share my very limited knowledge of gardening.

Radly

What you're describing seems more like Polyanthas than Teas. If you look at the Wikipedia entry for "Garden Roses" you'll see a good basic description of the classification.

:-)

~Christopher

what were the name of the roses? a good place to go to find the classification of roses is helpmefind.com/roses

FWIW, I'm comfortable with it either way -- but most of us who grow "Antique" roses also grow a few moderns (and vice-versa, I'm sure).

Beside that, I think our antiques are beautiful enough to seduce some of y'all who have only known modern roses.