It is a poll with voluntary participation, often with very small sample sizes. The shortcoming is that it takes no account of regional differences in climate, which makes a huge difference. Also, historically, the particular values of exhibitors may have played a disproportionate role.

Despite all that, it's a worthwhile institution, especially if you are interested in recently introduced roses. The ratings will flag varieties that are generally poor growers/bloomers and those that do well over a reasonable range of conditions. Active ARS members are probably more likely to try new roses than are the run of posters on GWeb.

But the best advice comes from growers in a climate similar to yours who have values similar to yours.

Keep in mind the rating is skewed toward the focus of those responding. I have seen many instances of this rating promoting roses which are NOT good garden plants because they provide one great bloom a year, so exhibitors adore it. I know they are separate ratings, but that still doesn't solve the problem. Many years ago, their ratings were given for the area the responder lived. A National rating of 9 doesn't mean it will be anymore than a 5 where you live. We really DO need regional ratings.

I spent years collecting the lowest rated roses by the ARS and had a garden full of wonderful GARDEN roses which performed beautifully and provided years of pleasure. What does the rating mean? That those who responded, feel that way about the rose. NOT necessarily how GOOD it is nor whether it will peform well for you. How do I use it? For entertainment! LOL!

Well said, Roseseek. There's not much one can do with those ratings BUT use them as a source of entertainment. Have to confess, however, that I'm one of the (apparently) VERY few willing to admit being a doting fan of 'Sterling Silver'. I've not checked lately, but assume SS's rating is still in the toilet. There really ought to be some kind of special ARS recognition awarded to a rose that has maintained such a low rating for so long while remaining so visible in commerce. Don'cha think?

As a coordinator for the survey that creates the ratings, let me give some input. Yes, it is a national average of everyone who reports. The ARS rating that is published in the Handbook for Selecting Roses is the GARDEN rating, not the EXHIBITION rating. Anyone/everyone can participate in the annual survey, and I usually post a thread when the survey period is open. I do get a large number of responses from exhibitors, but those folks are also more likely to grow newer roses for their own evaluation. I get more responses from non-exhibitors on Shrub and Floribundas.

There ARE "regional" ratings, you can get the district ratings from each of the district coordinators. Those ratings will be from reporters who are closer to your area. So, for those in the Penn-Jersey District, send me an e-mail and I'll get a copy out to you.

Disease resistance is one of the criteria that's supposed to be considered when rating a rose. I rate them each year as part of the requirements of being a Consulting/Master Rosarian.
Each year there's a thread here regarding rating the years roses. The rating system was opened up, a few years ago, to non ARS members.
If more Rose Forum members were to give input, the ratings might better reflect the garden rating. Many here complain a lot but few doing anything about it when the time comes to act. But then that's the case in most groups.
The most vocal complainers are the least likely to do anything about it!
I still think exhibitors, who probably are the largest percentage of those submitting, are the biggest influence of the final number. Therefore the rating number, especially for hybrid teas, probably reflects a rose's exhibition status as much as it's garden rating. Shrub roses and other usually garden varieties probably have a rating number that is more a true reflection of their actual rating.
I get my Handbook for Selecting Roses each year, but use it only at rose shows to find the correct class and name for a rose. I haven't checked a rating, ahead of time when I buy one, for years. Since I have an "Official Registry and Checklist," I use that at rose shows now.

I'd like to see more updating of ratings for older roses.

A random rose from Pickering revales a ARS rating of 8.4
There are also several lines regarding discription such as name, color, fragrance, bloomshape, bloom period, and other such information concerning the plants overall rated growth.
Lacking in this discription is disease and virus information as is true in most other rose sellers sites as well.
What makes the same rose differant:
If I where to buy 2 exactly the same named ARA rated at 8.4 roses and plant them 4-6 feet away from each other each of them might have a differant growing manner in terms of height and bloom count and some other smaller details. An example of this would be one will grow 6 feet and give more blooms as the second might only grew 4 feet with fewer blooms given the same amount of growing time. Imagine at five miles away a third could be at peek height and peek bloom even if all three had recieved the same exact feedings sun waterings and care. This is strange but true and not always common but can happen from time to time regardless of who sold this same rose of 2 to you

Regarding black spot and other disease/virus information that may or maynot be reported to the ARS no such ratings are indicated or stated on the discription at Pickering as well this holds true on alot of rose dealers, online sites and catalogs as well.

Like you (less than 50 miles away) I too live in a black spot zone *BS (*blackspot) is a fact of life for alot of roses but does vary from zone to zone

Can you trust the 8.4 ARS rating ? In my opinion a fair ARS rating however by the name (Which I wont mention) I would still be aware of BS I have no concerns regarding virus(RMV). Get it ? By it's name alone I have seen this rose it will get some degree of blackspot in this zone and even worse in other zones. The ARS rated 8.4 rose I would get it also knowing it would need some extra attention from time to time. I know it to be a sweet looking beauty definatly tempting as seen, however it is also a "trendy type " and a just to high in a "pastely color" for this coloring reson alone it just wouldn't fit in my garden.

As it is with all roses most of them are "Not for the faint at heart." (sad but true..... alot.... and many more after that ! Roses do require care)As the ole saying goes (one more time with this attitude of mine) EVERY ROSE HAS IT'S THORNS. I am glad to see you are planning your garden. I send concerns or a reminder to you on " THE SHADE" Conditions mentioned in your prior thread.
5XX)234-XXXX

OK... a rose that can't get better than a five in any climate is still a FIVE and probably not worth the money to buy it. If you never had a Lowell Thomas, Apollo, Eclipse or Forty-Niner, maybe the ratings don't mean much but when I was collecting yellows, I managed to find most of these so now I pay more attention to the Handbook than the prices.

I said "I'd like to see more updating of ratings for older roses."
In the new American Rose Magazine I received today, there's an article regarding updating older rose ratings every five years. This replaces the Triennial Survey used in the past.
It'll be available on line in March. I encourage all to take part.

For northern U.S. rose growers, the ratings published in the Canadian Rose Annual may be useful.

http://www.canadianrosesociety.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=53&Itemid=57

Another source of information is the EarthKind rating program:

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/earthkind/roses/

Karl; I haven't gotten my latest ARS mag so what you are saying is news to me. They are changing from rating every 3 years to 5 years? Did I understand that right?

I have been the national chair of RIR since 1996, and I was Central District chair for 12 years before that. Please allow me to give you my take on the ratings produced by RIR, that are the ones in the Handbook.

In my view, these Garden ratings give you some feel for the odds a given rose will do well for you. A highly rated rose has a better chance of doing well for you than one with a low rating. Is it an ironclad guarantee? No, but it gives you some idea of how the rose has done for other rose growers around the country. About 10 years ago we attempted to get ratings by region to see if there really were differences. While there were for a few roses, for most the variances from one region to another were fairly small.

I know there is a feeling that exhibitors give roses a high Garden rating if they happen to be good exhibition roses. I can tell you I see plenty of cases where the Garden rating is well below the Exhibition rating. One good example is Jane Pauley. This rose won HT Queen at a national some years ago. It can have an outstanding bloom. However, its Garden rating is only 7.2, meaning it is just another rose that is only so-so in the garden. I could go on, but I think you get the point.

As to updating the ratings on older roses, the ARS has had such a program for many years. Every three years all the Consulting Rosarians were asked to rerate the roses with existing ratings. After I became RIR chair and we could put the Triennial Survey online, I opened the survey up to anyone who wanted to participate. I also recognized that existing roses don't change in their performance overnight. It takes quite a few years before either the performance changes or our perception of the rose changes. Thus, after the 2005 TS I recommended to the ARS Board that we only conduct the survey once every five years. Obviously the five years since 2005 has now expired and we will be conducting the Quinquennial Survey this March. The complete Survey will be available on the ARS website, hopefully by March 1, and you can complete the survey online. If you would rather complete it with paper and pencil, the complete survey form will be available as a PDF document you can print out from the ARS website. This form can then be sent to your district RIR chair.

We typically get about 1,400 people rating roses for Roses in Review, and about 1,000 for the Triennial Survey. I invite all of you to participate in both surveys this year and every year. Rate your roses. The greater the input, the better the results.

Maryl
Guess Phil answered your question. I might remind you the
Quinquennial Survey is for updating roses already rated. There will still be a yearly RIR to rate newer unrated roses.

Did you notice how many roses listed in Pickering's catalog have no ARS ratings? I think that is because these roses were not introduced in the USA or at least not at wholesale level, so the ARS does not respond to them, or, it will pick them up very slowly and will rate them many years later. That is too bad because there are excellent roses by Harkness, Fryer, Kordes, Tantau and other breeders that seem to be non-existent for the ARS sometimes for many years.

Therefore, I suggest that don't be a sucker for the ARS ratings but rather pay attention to which roses are recommended by gardeners in your growing area.

Or. I just checked Margaret Merill's rating that is still 8.3. -according to Pickering. Well, when I started growing roses many years ago, I got this rose because of its ARS rating, and it was one of my most horrible roses along with Baronne Prevost (that rose had even higher rating) despite my obsessive spraying. MM does very well in California but it was an unmitigated disaster on the east coast. Rose growing is easier in CA, so obviously RIR gets much more votes in about individual roses than, let say from NC, and this will distort the results - no matter how well Phil Schorr & his committee work. I never doubted their effort and honesty but once I checked the numbers coming in from various districts I new that the ARS rating will never be reliable. Karl, believe me, it is hopeless effort to try to correct the CA reports because of the sheer numbers. I am not member of the ARS but for a few years I filled out (or tried to) the RIR reports. However, I soon realized that since I do not buy the newest HTs, or rarely do, and because fragrant and disease resistant roses have became more and more important for me less and less roses I found on the current RIR review lists. (True, in the last two years I tried to avoid any temptation as far as roses and gardening were concerned, so my comments refer to years prior to that).

Prairiemoon, for example, if you want to grow disease resistant roses check out the ADR ratings. I seem to remember that the main list also was published in English.

Or, check the list of the very disease resistant roses listed by Pickering and compare that with the ADR list. I grow Floral Fairy Tale (2003), Laguna (2004) and the Lion's rose rose (2002) in this terribly humid climate - all are great roses, none have ARS rating while many 2006 US intros already have very high ratings. Don't get me wrong, I don't imply that those roses may not deserve the high ratings - but it certainly shows that widespread US distribution influences a fast ARS rating that may or may not have anything to do with the real garden value of a particular rose.

"Therefore, I suggest that don't be a sucker for the ARS ratings but rather pay attention to which roses are recommended by gardeners in your growing area."

If you ask the gardeners in my area which roses they like you will get as many varying answers as you will on how to make Salsa. I don't think those of us who use the ARS ratings as a guide are succumbing to "sucker" bait. A few years back they listed the ratings by district in the ARS handbook, and the ratings didn't vary that much at all. A bad rose usually plays out as such regardless of where you live...If I have any questions it's to how the 5 year survey will mark the roses up or down. In the past you could only move the ratings a point or two up or down on the older varieties. If you really liked a rose or disliked a rose you couldn't mark it up or down enough to reflect your true opinion of it. So Margaret Merrill for instance could at best be moved down to 8.1 from 8.3 still a very good rating and not far enough down I'm guessing for Ceterum's opinion of it.

Sounds just like trying to buy a decent cup of coffee in an out of town coffee shop

Let me clear up a couple of additional issues. First, roses go on the RIR in their second, third and fourth years in commerce in the U.S. or easily available to U.S. growers. Roses offered by Pickering are easily available so they go on RIR just as fast as a rose introduced by J&P or Weeks. The reason many of them don't get ratings is because not enough people report on them. We do our best to get growers to report, but it is tough. For instance, how many of you that are criticizing the ARS ratings take the time each year to rate your roses on the RIR list?

In 2005, and again in 2010, the range of available changes in rating for roses with existing ratings is from Up 1.0 to Down 1.0. It is not just 0.2. There are roses whose ratings have changed significantly over the last couple of Triennial Surveys.

I agree with those who say it helps to check with local growers. Ask your ARS District Roses in Review person for a copy of the report for your district. Talk to other growers in your area who like the same types of roses you like. These are both valuable sources, without question. However, since there are roughly 15,000 different varieties in commerce at any given time, the chances are good local rosarians won't be familiar with all the varieties that interest you. The ratings in the Handbook are another source of information. They will give you some idea of how a rose does for other rosarians, and the odds that it will do well for you. Given the hundreds of local climate conditions, and even microclimates within your own garden, no one source can guarantee to give you foolproof information. On the other hand, why turn your back on a source that shows you how varieties have done for others?

Well, I want to thank everyone for such a lively discussion of the ARS Rating. I have a better idea of how to use the rating when I am choosing roses. I think I may have to do a little personal experimenting to keep track of what the ARS rating is on the roses I purchase and how they perform and see how that lines up.

As for the ins and outs of how they come up with the rating, it seems that someone makes quite an effort to try to produce a rating system that is of value for the purpose of helping other rose lovers in choosing good ones. It sounds difficult. It does have it's limitations evidently. Personally, I will gather information from as many sources as possible when choosing and hope for the best.

Thanks, I really appreciate the education, because I had no understanding of the ARS Rating.