10 Shade Tolerant Roses

Standard rose lingo has most of us believing that to grow a rose you need 6 plus hours of sunlight.  We'll I'm here to tell you it just isn't so!  Many many roses will do totally fine with less than 6, and some frankly with less than 4 hours of sunlight.   One of the unusual benefits to growing these shade tolerant types is that they tend to also be disease resistant types as well.  This is a huge benefit because one of the disease proliferating agents to roses is too much shade, so its all for the good, and make sense that if the shade isn't stressing the plant, it won't contract the diseases.

Sharifa Asma

I actually grow quite a few roses at my house which out back gets ZERO direct sunlight from Nov-Feb.  March and Oct, the shoulder months, moves from 2-4 hours, and then the late spring, summer and early fall months I get varying amounts of sun (from 4 to 8) depending on month and garden position.   Living in the city, my garden deals with shadows from buildings, mature trees and fence lines.  Anything that wants to live here also has to contend with fierce root competition.   And yet, my roses really, for the most part, have no issues. And it is a total wives tale that roses need sun in the winter too.  They are DORMANT then. Yep, totally no activity, so no, they don't need sun.  Ask anyone who lives up north where the roses either die back to the ground, or they live close enough to the poles to be getting less than 4 hours of dim light a day, and they can tell you... roses grow just fine when the sun returns.

Knockout

Here are some shady rose rules:

Rule number one, is pick the right roses, and they aren't hybrid teas.  Period.  Sorry.
Rule number two is that once blooming roses tend to need less sun as a whole than remontant (reblooming) or perpetual roses.  Having one of these in your garden is generally worth it, because the once a year show tends to be beyond spectacular.
Rule number three is hybrid musk roses, as a class, are more shade tolerant than others.
And Rule number four, they have knockout roses growing in the medians of the highway for a reason.

Okay without further ado, here is the list of roses I know you can grow successfully in under 6 hours of sun, because I do!  A * marks a rose I know can make it perfectly fine in even 3-4 hours of sun, as I have them growing in such conditions.

Ballerina - probably my favorite

1)Ballerina, Hybrid Musk* (seen blooming like mad in less than 3 hours of direct sun)
2)Any of the Knockout Roses, Modern* (seen blooming in almost no direct sunlight!)
3)Marie Pavie, Polyantha
4)Madame Alfred Carriere, Noisette (Climber)
5)Carefree Beauty, Modern* (mine lives directly beneath a large pecan tree, still covered in blooms)

Carefree Delight

6)Sharifa Asma, English Rose (this rose is new to me, but seems to be doing best SO FAR in part sun vs full sun.. the blooms and leaves do fry easily)
7)New Dawn (Climber) (this does fine in 4-6 hours, but definitely doesn't bloom to potential with less than that)

New Dawn

8)Carefree Delight, Modern
9)Eden Climber, Modern(Climber)
10)Lady Banks Lutea, Species

Carefree Beauty - super drought tolerant too.

Marie Pavie

 Considerations about my garden:  There is no spot in my yard which is dense shade, or even medium shade.   Even zero directly light is pretty bright out there (light shade), because I live in the southern US.  This makes a difference to some degree.  No rose will bloom in deep shade.  Some roses, on the margin will get blackspot in the shade more frequently than it would in the sun.   I do not have major blackspot issues in my garden, and I 100% attribute that to smart rose choices, because my climate is primo ideal for it, and I have had other plants with blackspot like fungal diseases.   I do get powdery mildew badly during the summer on non resistant plants (phlox and beebalm primarily), but my roses so far have been immune.   However, all of my roses are on a drip irrigation system or are in containers where the water situation is heavily managed.  Obviously, some of these are warm zone only roses, but not all of them.

Madame Alfred Carriere Climber - Z8+

Something I cannot comment on, though maybe others can, I don't have a big bug problem on the coast here (the mosquitos are only after us I'm afraid, and the palmetto bugs aren't after anybody they are just gross), so I have no idea how likely these are to have major bug infestations.  I've never seen a thrip or a spidermite in my garden, for which I am eternally grateful.  Outrageous humidity all year 'round does have its privileges.  Okay, so yeah, thats the only one... so far no Japanese beetles either.  Just too much concrete for them in the urban zone, is my guess.  I do have a perpetual slug problem, but none of the above roses are affected.  I think there is just too much else that tastes better out there.

Do any of you have some good suggestions for the not only 'shade tolerant', but 'shade is swell' rose bush varieties that you have tested with your own eyes?

Lady Banks

Categories: Roses