Yes, there is a FAQ, but it doesn't quite answer your question. "Old Garden Rose" has an official definition. "Antique Rose" does not, but would include OGR plus the types popular around 1910 including ramblers, polyanthas, and hybrid musks. Here we actually discuss just about anything except recent hybrid teas and such.

I'm not sure there is a specific, well-defined answer to your question. The criteria that do exist are, at best, rather nebulous. One benchmark date is 1867, the introduction year of LaFrance, the first HT. Any rose introduced before that date is unquestionably accepted as an antique.

Using 1867 as a cut-off date, however, excludes countless roses from many classes that are not "modern" roses as that term has come to be defined. The term "old garden rose" was, I think, coined to include all roses that were in cultivation before the end of the Victorian era (1901), or thereabout. At any rate this is a subject for MUCH quibbling . . . something most of us here LOVE to do (that includes me).

My cheeks are a proper rosy color of embarrassment since there is, indeed, a FAQ page. And it does, sort of, give the information I was looking for.

Many thanks!
Ginny
PS I'd been wondering what OGR meant, so thanks for clearing that up, too.

OK, since we are sort of on the subject....

We know (sort of) what an Old Garden Rose is. Therefore what are:

New Garden Roses?
and/or
Non-Garden Roses?

I have my own ideas, but am interested in what other people have come up with. Has anybody found any official definitions?

My understanding of an Old Garden Rose is any rose of a class of roses in existence in 1867. I recently bought a Tea class rose, Faith Whittlesey, bred in 2006 that is an Old Garden Rose, because the Tea class existed in 1867. There are many Polyanthas bred in the 1800s that aren't OGRs because Polyanthas were not a class of roses in 1867.

OGR classes are:

Albas
Bourbons
Centifolias
Chinas
Damasks
Gallicas
Hybrid Perpetuals
Moss Roses
Noisettes
Portlands
Rugosas
Teas

Other classes may be o-l-d (antique) but not O-G-R. And some roses may be chronologically modern, but they're still O-G-R.

Hope that helps.

Sherry

Sherry, There are a few rose fanciers who strongly oppose grouping "new OGRs" like 'Faith Whittlesey' with the truly old OGRs. One who has written about this issue is the garden columnist, Thomas Christopher. He briefly discusses the matter in his book, 'In Search of Lost Roses'. IIRC, though, he doesn't address the question of where he would place these new introductions in the OGR/modern rose continuum.

I happen to be intrigued with the new OGRs -- especially the Teas. I've recently added 'Krishna's Peach' and plan to get 'Garnet Crest' next spring. Please keep us posted on how FW performs for you.

Regardless of what Mr Christopher, et al. have to say, all questions about today's new OGRs will be moot in a century or two, so I'm not gonna fret about it.

Because "antique" implies chronology, the passing of time,
I would include all roses of these rose classes, if bred before 1930:
Polyantha
Hybrid Rugosa dozens of these were bred before 1930.
Hybrid Musk
Rambler
-All Old Garden Roses. An Old Garden Rose is called such, if it has two parents that are Old Garden Rose classes, (except for early Hybrid Teas).
Because 90% of Austin roses bred after 1980, these are neither antique by date of introduction, nor by breeding, Austin roses as a group beneath a heading, should properly be under the Modern rose section, because the great majority of his roses that he bred after 1980 have two modern rose parents, and putting them here, I believe misleads the public into thinking he breeds Old Garden Roses or that most of his roses were bred from such O.G.R.'s, when the opposite is true.
Modern by breeding + modern by introduction= a thoroughly modern rose.

Lux.

Interesting thread! Just want to add to this discussion a question that I have a long time in my head: What is the definition for an antique Hybrid Tea? Or if there is not an official definition, what are the criteria that qualify a Hybrid Tea as an antique?

Antique Hybrid Tea. Hmmm . . . interesting question. I don't think I've ever seen those words combined. EARLY Hybrid Tea, but never antique HT. Well, it has to happen eventually, why not now?

I can't answer the second of Organic++'s questions, but the answer to the first is an unequivocal NO: There is not an *official* definition.

I have heard the phrase "Classic Hybrid Tea" used but am not sure what that entails. Most people would call a rose such as "Hadley" a classic Hybrid Tea. If the rose is not for sale in general rose nurseries but can be had from a place like Vintage, and if it was a popular and "great" rose in its day, I suppose that would be considered a classic Hybrid Tea. The term to me at least implies some age and some greatness but it seems a nebulous concept at best. Perhaps someone more expert on this forum would have some answers.

Ingrid

Just to throw a wrench in, did the "Garden" in OGR signify it was a bred roses as opposed to species? Many species roses end up in the OGR concept because they end up in even modest gardens fairly often, ie, R. Moschata, R. Rugosa.

Maybe it's time for some new nomenclature, something that would incorporate both time and genetics. Here is my suggestion:
Species (S):
Antique Rose (AR): for all classes developed before 1867
New Antique Rose (NAR): for all roses bred from 1867 classes but post 1867
Hybrid Antique Rose: (HAR) for all classes arising directly from the Antique Roses, like Hybrid Musks, Polyanthas, Hybrid Teas
New Hybrid Antique Rose (NHAR): True to breeding but bred after, say 1950
Modern Roses: (MR) All classes arising since 1950

Catsrose, I've assumed that the term 'garden rose' signifies any rose that is in cultivation as an ornamental, regardless of whether it's a species or a hybrid.

Your comments prompted me to re-read Mad Gallica's post above regarding 'new garden' and 'non-garden' roses. I hope she'll return to give us her thoughts on the matter. I'm especially curious about the 'non-garden' category.

I would say a garden rose is a cultivar, while a non-garden rose is an unselected species rose such as would normally occur in the wild. Cultivars include hybrids but also selections from species roses that are vegetatively propagated to preserve special garden-worthy qualities. Most of the gallicas are thought to be species selections.

The term "Classic Hybrid Tea" usually refers to the older ones.
So, 'La France,' and 'Dainty Bess' and 'Innocence,' and 'Irish Fireflame' are "Classic HT's."
Where it gets dicey is where you cut off the date.
Exhibitors like to include 'Peace' in that category.
Others disagree.
At present, Rose Societies may define the class for themselves, for their rose shows.
And we can sort of do it for ourselves, too.

Jeri

A problem with the term 'classic' (as in 'classic hybrid tea') is that it confounds age with form. 'Classic HT' might mean one thing to you and me, and quite another thing to, for instance, a rose exhibitor. Perhaps a hard & fast definition of terms is what is needed -- and we all know that ain't gonna happen.

I'll repeat an argument I've made before on one of the rose forums, whether this one or the rose forum I don't remember. The essential characteristic of the roses we discuss on this forum, whether OGR, older rose, David Austin rose, species, or other, is that we're concerned with roses that we value as SHRUBS. We care not only about flowers, but about the plant and how it works esthetically in our landscape. I suppose this would be considered a functional definition. I'll happily leave other considerations to those who enjoy discussing them.
Melissa

Well -- SHRUB is one thing. And yes, Melissa, I do consider those Austin roses to be pleasing SHRUB roses, with "decorative" or "Old-Fashioned" bloom form.

But -- "Antique"???? Now, that implies something altogether different.

I have an old wooden ice box that I use as a cupboard. It's over 100 years old. That's an "Antique," IMHO.

OTOH, I can go down to the "Oak Barn" furniture store, and buy a nice new cupboard, made to look just like my old ice box. That, IMHO, is not an "Antique."
You could call it a cupboard in an "Antique Style," but it is new, and it's not an "Antique."

So, I consider Austin's roses to be Modern Shrub Roses (which is also what ARS calls them) in an "Antique Style."
Nuthin' wrong with that, either.

Jeri

I like Melissa's practical way of thinking. If your not a rose fanatic, that's all you need to make a garden the way you want it.

Most of the people who visit my garden think the Mayflower is just a pink version of Rose de Rescht which grows adjacent to it.

I certainly don't have a quarrel with people who want to procede further in their classification of roses, and continue discussing how to classify the genetic soup that is garden roses. I was just looking at what qualities most of the roses we discuss on this forum have in common.
The undiscussed side of my functional definition is that Old Garden Roses, by the most usual definition (belonging to classes in existence before 'La France', the first Hybrid Tea, came on the scene), as roses don't have anything in common beyond that definition. They are extremely variable in their physical characteristics--just compare 'De la Maitre-Ecole' with 'Mutabilis', for example--and they aren't even all old. I think this is worth bringing up because I think a lot of gardeners don't entirely realize it. I think classifying roses is useful, just so gardeners will have some idea of a rose's characteristics when they get busy planning their gardens. But saying that a given rose is an OGR doesn't say much of anything that I can see, from a practical standpoint.

Jeri, I'm not arguing against anything you said. And while I greatly admire David Austin's roses, and not infrequently wish I could grow them, I don't consider them to be some kind of antique rose, or a substitute for them. They're different, and it's in creating them that David Austin has proven what a brilliant hybridizer he is and has made his contribution to the world of roses.

Melissa

Oh Melissa -- I don't disagree with you!
ARS calls Austin's roses Modern Shrubs -- as good a term as any, I guess.
I've always thought of the Shrub Rose group as being something like the American Kennel Club's
"Non-Sporting Group" of dogs. A catchall classification for things that don't fit elsewhere.

They can be many things -- including lovely garden roses, where they grow well.

What they cannot be is Old Roses. (Although some early Austins could have fit into the HP group.)

And for the next several decades, they can't be "Antiques."

Jeri