AGRS gallery
'Lady of Shalott'
'Icecap'
'Lemon Fizz'
'Munstead Wood'
The American Garden Rose Selections (AGRS) is an annual award sponsored by the American rose industry to acknowledge and recommend outstanding rose varieties for different regions of the United States. AGRS replaced the long-established All-America Rose Selections, which was discontinued after 2012. AGRS's first annual award was introduced in 2016. The AGRS selection process involves rose trials in multiple regional test gardens throughout the U.S. Promising rose varieties are grown and evaluated multiple times a year for two years. Only 4% of all the roses tested in the program are selected for the AGRS award.
The American Garden Rose Selections (AGRS) is an award given annually by the American rose industry to outstanding new rose varieties. AGRS has replaced the All-America Rose Selections Award (1938–2012), considered to be the most prestigious rose award in the U.S. In 2012, representatives from many professional rose organizations came together during "the Great Rosarians of the World" lecture series being held in New York City. They discussed the establishment of a new, more rigorous national rose trial program, one that would identify and recommend the best roses to gardeners who lived in different regions in the U.S. [1]
The group decided that the new rose trial test program should more selective than the previous AARS testing program, and require stricter maintenance standards for the AGRS test gardens. [1] [2] Only about 4% of the roses tested in the AARS program are chosen for the AGRS award. The first award winners were introduced in 2016. [3]
The AGRS selection process consists of rose trials at multiple regional test gardens throughout the U.S. Many of the test gardens are located in botanical gardens that are usually open to the public. Promising rose varieties that are submitted to the AGRS program are grown and tested in official test gardens for two years in six different geographical regions. Each region has two test gardens. The roses are evaluated five times each growing season by rose experts. One of the primary goals of the program is the selection of rose varieties that are disease resistant and easy to care for. Evaluators also search for hardiness, excellent flowering, attractiveness, repeat bloom habit, foliage health, plant habit, and fragrance. [1] [3]
The AGRS official trial test gardens include: the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe, Illinois, Edisto Memorial Garden in Orangeburg, South Carolina, Mesa Community College Rose Garden in Mesa, Arizona, the Ag Center Botanic Gardens in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Portland International Test Garden in Portland, Oregon, Queens Botanical Garden in New York City, and Boerner Botanical Gardens in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin.
The International Rose Test Garden is a rose garden in Washington Park in Portland, Oregon, United States. There are over 10,000 rose bushes of approximately 650 varieties. The roses bloom from April through October with the peak coming in June, depending on the weather. New rose cultivars are continually sent to the garden from many parts of the world and are evaluated on several characteristics, including disease resistance, bloom formation, color, and fragrance. It is the oldest continuously operating public rose test garden in the United States and exemplifies Portland's nickname, "City of Roses". The garden draws an estimated 700,000 visitors annually.
Rosa 'Alain' is a red Floribunda rose variety, bred by Francis Meilland before 1946. Meilland International introduced the rose in France in 1948. It was named for Meilland's son, Alain, who was born in 1940. It won the Geneva Gold Medal in 1948.
Hybrid tea is an informal horticultural classification for a group of garden roses. The first hybrid tea roses were created in France in the mid-1800s, by cross-breeding the large, floriferous Hybrid Perpetuals with the tall, elegant Tea roses. The Hybrid tea is the oldest class of Modern garden roses. Hybrid teas exhibit traits midway between both parents, being hardier than the often delicate Tea roses, and with a better ability for repeat-flowering than the more robust Hybrid Perpetuals.
Meilland International SA is a family-owned rose growing business founded circa 1850. The business operates today out of the Domaine de Saint André in Le Cannet-des-Maures, Le Luc en Provence, Var, France with branches all over the world.
Francis Meilland was a French rose breeder and co-founder of Meilland International, a family-owned rose growing company in southern France. The Meilland family has been breeding and selling roses since 1850. Francis Meilland is best known for developing the legendary Hybrid tea rose, 'Peace', in the 1930s. Since the rose's introduction in the U.S. in 1945, over 40 million 'Peace' roses have been sold worldwide.
The Peace rose, formally Rosa 'Madame A. Meilland', is a well-known and successful garden rose. By 1992, over one hundred million plants of this hybrid tea had been sold. The cultivar has large flowers of a light yellow to cream color, slightly flushed at the petal edges with crimson-pink. It is hardy and vigorous and relatively resistant to disease, making it popular in gardens as well as in the floral trade.
A rose garden or rosarium is a garden or park, often open to the public, used to present and grow various types of garden roses, and sometimes rose species. Most often it is a section of a larger garden. Designs vary tremendously and roses may be displayed alongside other plants or grouped by individual variety, colour or class in rose beds. Technically it is a specialized type of shrub garden, but normally treated as a type of flower garden, if only because its origins in Europe go back to at least the Middle Ages in Europe, when roses were effectively the largest and most popular flowers, already existing in numerous garden cultivars.
Rose trial grounds or rose test gardens are agricultural areas where garden roses are grown to be assessed for qualities such as health, floriferousness, novelty, and scent.
An ADR rose is a winner in the German ADR rose trial. No chemical pesticides have been allowed since 1997 and breeders often describe the trial as among the most challenging in the world. The trial is set up by a working group that includes the Bund deutscher Baumschulen, rose breeders, and eleven independent trial stations in Germany. The trial results are analyzed by the Bundessortenamt.
The All-America Rose Selections (AARS) is an award that was given annually, from 1940 to 2013, by the American rose industry to an outstanding new rose variety. The AARS selection was regarded as the most prestigious rose prize in the United States for 73 years. AARS was discontinued after 2013, and was replaced in 2016 by the new American Garden Rose Selections (AGRS) program.
Rosa 'Scentimental' is a red and white striped Floribunda rose, created by Tom Carruth in 1996. The rose was named an All-America Rose Selections winner in 1997.
Rosa 'Francis Meilland', also known as 'Schloss Ippenburg' or 'Prince Jardinier', is a light pink Hybrid tea rose cultivar. The rose was developed by Alain Meilland in France in 2006, and has won multiple awards in Europe and the United States.
Rosa 'Sunshine Daydream',, is a light yellow Grandiflora rose cultivar, bred by Michèle Meilland Richardier before 2006. It was named All-America Rose Selections in 2012.
Rosa 'Europeana' is a dark red Floribunda rose cultivar. It was created by de Ruiter Innovations in Belgium in 1963. It was named an All-America Rose Selections in 1968.
Rosa 'Knock Out',, is a shrub rose cultivar bred by American rose grower, William Radler in 1989, and introduced into the United States by Star Roses and Plants in 2000. It was named an All-America Rose Selections winner in 2000.
The Meilland Family is a multi-generational family of French rose breeders. The family's first rosarian was gardener, Joseph Rambaux, who first started breeding roses in 1850 in Lyon. He is best known for developing the Polyantha 'Perle d'Or'. His wife, Claudine and son-in-law, Francois Dubreuil, took over the nursery after Rambaux died in 1878. Dubreuil became a successful rose breeder and grower. In 1900, Dubreuil hired sixteen year old, Antoine Meilland, as a gardening assistant, where he met Dubreuil's daughter, Claudia. Antoine and Claudia married in 1909 and their son, Francis was born in 1912. The couple took over Dubreuil's nursery after his death in 1916.
Rosa 'Lady of Shalott' is an apricot-orange shrub rose cultivar, bred by British rose breeder, David C. H. Austin and introduced into the UK by David Austin Roses Limited (UK) in 2009. 'Lady of Shalott' is part of the David Austin English Rose Collection. It was awarded the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit in 2012 and the American Garden Rose Selections award in 2017.
Rosa 'Munstead Wood' is a dark red shrub rose cultivar, bred by British rose breeder David C. H. Austin, and introduced into the UK by David Austin Roses Limited (UK) in 2007. The cultivar was named after horticulturalist and garden designer Gertrude Jekyll's home, Munstead Wood, in Surrey, England. The rose was awarded the Award of Garden Merit (AGM) by the British Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) in 2007 and an American Garden Rose Selections (AGRS) Fragrance Award, in 2017.
Rosa 'Black Baccara' is a dark burgundy Hybrid tea rose cultivar, bred by French rose hybridizer, Jacques Mouchotte, before 2000. Meilland International introduced the rose in France in 2000. The rose was also introduced in America by Star Roses and Plants/Conard-Pyle in 2002.