8 Favorites: Roses for Pollinators

There are many considerations when it comes to choosing a rose: Do you like the color? Will it repeat flower or produce wonderful hips? Does it have a delicious scent? Will it grow to suit the space or the way you want to use it? Few of us, though, give a thought to whether it will be beloved by bees and other pollinators, and yet roses can provide an excellent source of nectar.

Photography by Clare Coulson, unless otherwise noted.

Above: Rambling roses—with their profusion of blooms they are a great choice for bees—at Asthall Manor in the Cotswolds. Photograph by Britt Willoughby Dyer.

Many modern roses are bred with a laser focus on form, color, scent, and health. Densely ruffled flowers and deep cups are often prized for their exquisite, romantic looks, too. But pass by these beauties, because it’s the single, open roses that work best for pollinators—if the stamens are visible and easy to access, so much the better for busy bees.

Above: It speaks volumes of the species roses’ resilience that it can grow almost anywhere. Here, Rosa rugosa, with its vivid fuchsia pink flowers, sprawls across the dunes of a beach.

Most species roses fall into this category —these wild plants are the original roses. They are tough and come in many forms—shrubs, climbing, rambling—but tend to have single or open flowers and exceptionally good health. Rosa glauca and rugosa, as well as dog roses, are some of the best known species roses, but there are hundreds of different types.

Roses that have been bred can also display similar qualities to these ancestors, echoing their open flowers, visible stamens, and profusion of blooms. Here are a few of our favorites.

Rosa ‘Florence Mary Morse’

Above: Rosa ‘Florence Mary Morse’ is a vigorous and tall floribunda rose, originally bred in the mid- 20th century, that makes an eye-popping display in the borders at Great Dixter in Sussex.

Rosa ‘Fighting Temeraire’

Above: With its large iridescent apricot flowers, Rosa ‘Fighting Temeraire’ is a favorite with floral designers, prized for its ethereal beauty and vivid yellow stamens. It’s a small shrub roses growing to around three feet tall.

Rosa ‘Blush Noisette’

Above: The delicate, pale pink blooms of Rosa ‘Blush Noisette’, a repeat flowering climber. This old rose has a profusion of tiny pink buds, followed by small open flowers which appear on long graceful branches.

Rosa ‘The Lark Ascending’

Above: ‘The Lark Ascending’ is another exquisitely beautiful modern rose bred by David Austin. It has open semi-double peach flowers, with an inner yellow flush that seems to light the flower from within. It’s exceptionally healthy and also produces orange-red hips in autumn.

Rosa ‘Rambling Rector’

Above: The sprawling ‘Rambling Rector’ grows along a tree trunk and logs at Tattenhall Hall in Cheshire, England. A really popular rose smothered with large heads of small creamy white flowers and can grow in excess of 25 feet.

Rosa ‘Frances E. Lester’

Above: ‘Frances E. Lester’ is another rambler with a profusion of small flowers and a strong fragrance that is followed by beautiful hips. A vigorous plant it will easily scramble up the front of a house or across walls and outbuildings.

Rosa ‘Sceptre’d Isle’

Above: Rosa ‘Sceptre’d Isle’ is a wonderful rose to grow in borders with open cupped pale pink flowers and beautiful yellow stamens.

Rosa ‘Madame Gregoire Staechelin’

Above: ‘Madame Gregoire Staechelin’ is a magnificent hybrid tea climber with intense mid pink open flowers. Introduced in 1927 this is a once-flowering, vigorous rose perfect for growing over a pergola or across the front of a house.

See also:

• Roses in the Kitchen: How to Bottle Their Sweet Fragrance for Syrups and Drinks
• 8 Favorites: Native Roses
• Dreaming of Roses? Now’s the Time to Plant Them Bare Root