The roses are rated by the folks who grow them. The ARS presents a slate of roses for evaluation every year. Many of us provided ratings recently thanks to DianeNJ. Ratings are helpful, but still don't take zones and other conditions into account.

Some of those ratings are very contorted. I have grown roses with a low rating that did wonderfully and others with high ratings did poorly. Not sure who some of these folks are rating these roses, but some are very skewed.

Occassionally, you'll see a ratings list with the number of ratings received in parenthesis. It can be extremely illuminating. Relatively few roses get a statistically significant number of ratings, and even that would only count if those ratings were all from the same climatic conditions. Just how much significance would be expected from a rating based on under 20 reports spread across the entire country?

Here is what the recent survey listed:
9.3-10 One of the best ever
8.8-9.2 Outstanding (top 1 %)
8.3-8.7 Very good to excellent
7.8-8.2 Solid to very good
7.3-7.7 Good
6.8-7.2 Average
6.1-6.7 Below Average
0.0-6.0 Not recommended

Why the rose was rated high or low depends on the rater. Someone who adores fragrance may give a rose a higher rating while I might give the same rose a lower one due to its poor disease-resistance. All the ratings are then averaged into one final score.

There is no absolute source that will give you a quick and complete answer to how well a rose will perform, but the ARS ratings are one tool among several others (including comments on this forum) for helping you decide on a rose for your garden. The most accurate rating will be the one you give it after it has grown for three or more years in your own garden.

Kate

The ratings come from the ARS "Handbook for Selecting Roses". The ratings are generated from volunteer participants (like you!) who enter data via the annual "Roses in Review" process, which is currently underway (you do not need to be an ARS member in order to participate). A select set of roses is reviewed every year. The selection is based on roses that have been grown over the years. Not every rose in commerce is rated, there are too many.

The rating in the handbook is the average of all ratings entered for a rose across the country. Most of the reporters come from warmer zones. So, it is best if you can obtain the district (regional) results from the district coordinator for your area/state, but the handbook is a start. Also, it is subjective, what does well for one person might not do so well for you in your garden.

Here is a link that might be useful: 2007 Roses in Review Survey is Available!

Initial ratings are based on the first three full years a rose is in commerce.
At one time our Tenarky District RIR (Roses in Review) coordinator decided he was going to give all the info that came in, not limiting reports to those roses that had eight or more reports.
For a district to have eight or more reports would be easy for the AARS winners and others pushed by the big producers, but for roses from smaller nurseries, they'll probably never get the numbers to make blips from district to district.
Where the triennial survey and "others' comes in are that these ask about roses that have been in commerce for a while, so more people have tried them (and liked them or hated them).

Gallicas aren't going to get good ratings in parts of the country; hybrid giganteas aren't going to do well where gallicas do. And then factor in rootstock issues.

If the NY RIR coordinator limited the output to anything that had 8 or more reports in the district, it would be an awful short report and save a fair amount of postage. I think even Knock Out never had more than 5, and that's an enormous number. Then you spread it over 4 growing zones, and the only reason to even look at the thing is for the comments.

I am not sure where I read this but once I saw ratings submitted and not only the number of people were listed but the geographical areas as well. Those sheets showed that far more people submitted ratings from California than from other regions, maybe even from other regions combined (I didn't do the math, so this last estimate just a guess). Disease problems are different in California than in other parts of the country. So based on the numbers, a rose will be highly rated if many gardeners like it in CA and can be a dog anywhere else.

So the handbook can reflect the real numbers submitted and still be useless in certain regions.

A ranking system broken down into regions would be a real boon to rose growers. Sure, even a "regional" ranking could not take into account every micro-climate, soil variations and the like. But still it would be a lot more valid and useful that one "national" number.

For the ARS to persist in giving roses a nation-wide raking makes no sense. We all know this. A rose thats a super-star here in Southern California might be a blackspot nightmare in Georgia. And any number of Europen classes that might not fare well here, might be wonderful in Northern climes.

It would not be difficult for the ARS to have "regional" ratings, but the organization proves resistant to change (understatement). Currently, non-members can join in the "rose in review" process, but can not look at the raking on the ARS website, which are reserved for "members only". Not that they serve that much good.

How great would it be to have a region based ranking that was actually useful to rose-growers? Sigh.

Bill

If ARS wants to do National ratings, that's fine, but I think it would be a great boon to do them by District. The various ARS Districts COULD publish those ratings on their websites. That wouldn't be hard.
THAT SAID . . . Even ratings broken down by Districts would be distressingly broad. My Pacific Southwest District would encompass the desert AND mountain areas of Arizona and New Mexico, a snippet of NW TX, the Valleys of Southern California, and my coastal areas which -- believe me -- are a whole different kettle of fish.
Bill, are you SERIOUS that ARS makes the ratings unavailable to non-Members? Jeeze. How un-welcoming.
In the end, you're far better off to check with people in your immediate area, and that's where a LOCAL rose society (or Heritage group) can come in handy.
If Bill wants to know how an Old Rose will do for him in Southern California, he has the Gold Coast HRG to turn to for answers.
I really DO see value in belonging to a local rose society. And if your society doesn't have enough interest in Old Roses, start educating them. It CAN be done.

Jeri

A Jeri said...nothing beats "local" knowledge. The information (and good-fellowship) I've gained from joining my local Heritage Group (Gold Coast HRG) can't be overstated.

Anyone interested in old roses, would be well served to investigate if there is a Heritage group in their area. It's been an extremely positive experience for me.

You can get "regional ratings" at the district level from the district coordinators. Jeri is right though, for those areas that are geographically and climate diverse, that might not even help. On the district-level reports, notations from the reviewers giving some general indication of zone/location, helps.

I submit everything that I get in, I don't just limit it to roses with 8 or more reviews.

Rose societies, locally, are the best answer as all soil is the same and everyone sprays the same chemicals the same number of times per week, month and year. There are no exceptions and everyone uses the same rootstock. Help me find my way out of this controversial post.

You know I am lying. Roses are different and how they do in the east side of my garden is different from the west, the alkalinity and the acidity varies in different locations of my garden. How can anyone believe that we can all speak for one another. I have a sandy part of my garden, probably where contractor dumped sand to start grass, where fortuniana does well. In another area, I could grow blueberry crops and yet another area that does well with r. multiflora, but overall, my garden likes own-root roses and resents the hell out of Dr. Huey. There is no one-size-fits-all for roses.

> You know I am lying. Roses are different
> and how they do in the east side of my
> garden is different from the west,

*** You are right, of course.
We can all just choose to experiment on our own, and never ask anyone for information.
But if I ask people who live in my general area how a rose did for them, and three people close to me did well with it, I might give it a try.
If three people who live near me say it lacked vigor and suffered from every disease known to living man, I would either not buy it,
or I would buy it with a "What the H*ll, I'll try it anyhow" attitude.

It's probably closer to accurate than the answers I would get if I asked people in other states.

Jeri

Oddly enough, often times the lower the ARS ratings, the more I like the rose. I've found the ratings to be absolutely useless for me.

Randy

I look at the ratings, but generally they don't mean anything at all in our area. For example the old hybrid tea Dame de Couer has a very low rating, 6 point something, and it is one of the best roses in my yard, grafted or own root. Gets a touch of blackspot now and then, but I just pick the leaves off. It blooms all the time and has a nice shape to the bush, very well branched.

Sandy

This was very helpful to me. Thank you, everyone. I've learned some things:

1. The ratings aren't reflective of a rose's 'true value' for everyone in every situation. No one knows who they're exactly true for.

2. The ratings are just opinions from anyone who cares to give one.

3. Some people work very hard to compile the ratings, hoping they will be of help to those who grow roses or want to grow roses. These people know the ratings aren't perfect, but try anyway to help.

4. People here on GW who love their roses want to be of help to others who grow or want to grow roses. It helps if these people's opinions are backed by experience or great knowledge.

I guess a logical ? might be is whether any group anywhere has enough knowledge or experience to compile ratings that are more regional and would they be of any real use.

Nah, probably not. Growing roses is like trout fishing, the fun is in figuring out for yourself how to do it, with some help from some friends.

Thank you. Annie

I'm seriously considering getting 'Wild Blue Yonder' next year, in no small part due to it being an AARS winner.

Will it do well in the Mid-Atlantic, or is it too soon to tell?

Will see about this sooner with (fellow AARS winners) Strike it Rich and Julia Child (does Carruth own the AARS?), as they are current purchases; as far as I have been able to find, Julia Child does well, but the verdict is still out on Strike it Rich for the area?

Of course, as Jim notes, there is always Kordes...Laguna and either Aloha or Moonlight (maybe the Alchymist?) look probable.

Now, if I can also get Erinnerung an Brod........

The ARS and the AARS are two different entities.

The American Rose Society (ARS) performs a yearly survey of roses and anyone who grows the rose is eligible to participate in that survey (called "Roses in Review"). The results of the Roses in Review are published in the ARS Handbook for Selecting Roses.

The All-American Rose Selections committee (AARS) has 20 test gardens throughout the US. Roses in those gardens are tagged with a serial number (not the same as the registered name). There are judges selected who physically go to the gardens and they rate the roses over a two year period. The judges do not have any additional information about the rose. Tom Carruth is the president of the AARS. One of the two winners for 2008 was Mardi Gras from Dr. Keith Zary, and the other was Dream Come True from an amateur hybridizer, Dr. John Pottschmidt.