Garden roses are predominantly hybrid roses that are grown as ornamental plants in private or public gardens. They are one of the most popular and widely cultivated groups of flowering plants, especially in temperate climates. An enormous number of garden cultivars has been produced, especially over the last two centuries, though roses have been known in the garden for millennia beforehand. While most garden roses are grown for their flowers, often in dedicated rose gardens, some are also valued for other reasons, such as having ornamental fruit, providing ground cover, or for hedging.
The cultivars are classified in a number of different and overlapping ways, generally without much reference to strict botanical principles. Taking overall size and shape, the most common type is the bush rose, a rounded plant from 2 foot up to about 7 foot tall, above which height roses generally fall into the "'climbing and rambling'" class, the latter spreading wider; support is needed for these. There are also miniature roses, generally small bushes, and low sprawling ground cover roses, both up to about 15 inches tall. Most modern roses are propagated by budding onto rootstocks much closer to wild species; in "standard" shapes there is a single bare stem, with the graft at the top of that. Shrub roses are a rather loose category that include some of the original species and cultivars closely related to them, plus cultivars that grow rather larger than most bush roses. Technically all roses are shrubs. In terms of ancestry, roses are often divided into three main groups: Wild, Old Garden, and Modern Garden roses, with many subdivisions of these.
