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Hybrid Teas. The Senior Members Of The Group.Whilst one huge family the Hybrid Teas have been around for many, many years. The first ‘La France’ was introduced in 1865.Today we refer to roses as being either old fashioned or modern. Gallicas are old fashioned, Miniatures are modern. So where do the Hybrid Teas belong when they, as a group, span more than a century? Experts will give different answers to this question and I will not bore you by repeating them all here. Suffice to say that the second world war saw a large drop in the numbers introduced, and given this advantage of retrospect, the early 1940’s appear the ideal chronological cut off date between ‘old fashioned’ and ‘modern’ Hybrid Teas. The older varieties were of fairly straight forward ancestry and share very similar characteristics in the form of large, pointed, solitary blooms, borne at the end of a long stem. However, the Victorian craving for big and beautiful did not suit the Hybrid Teas as well as it did the Hybrid Perpetuals. In their need to create bigger flowers they overlooked the health, vigour, and perfume of their early introductions leaving their inheritors with very inferior plants. This is not true of all the older Hybrid Teas but it takes a real devotee to add some of them to the rose garden. Amongst their ranks, however, are some wonderful roses, big perfumes, big flowers and good growers. It is best to check the catalogues and the rose dictionaries before deciding which is for you. What can be agreed is that they will not out grow their welcome, seldom getting above four feet and they will flower continuously (but they do require a careful but heavy annual prune) and they are ideal cut flowers.
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