Check out this video: "How to Choose Roses: A Rose For Every Location"

“In a nursery, you may be a little bit overwhelmed with all the roses you have to choose from,” says Growing Wisdom's Dave Epstein in his new video, "How to Choose Roses: A Rose for Every Location. “Well, the reality is, you need the right rose for the right location.”

In the video, Dave demystifies the rose selection process with an overview of three popular, easy-care landscaping rose lines - Flower Carpet, Knock Out and Drift - and shows how each can be used to its best in the garden.

Dave recommends a little research before you shop, so you know you’re choosing the right plant for the right place: “Remember, when you go to the nursery, all the roses may look the same in the pot, but in a few years, they’re going to look a lot different.” 

Here's Dave's breakdown of easy-care roses and their uses:

Flower Carpet roses along a roadway

Flower Carpet roses: Because they’re salt- and drought-tolerant, they’re perfect alongside roads and driveways. Their season-long blooms and full, sprawling, bushy form also make them ideal for filling out large blocks of color. Because they can grow up and around things, they’re also good for softening visual elements like fence posts, chain link fences, rocks, hardscaping and garden art.

“It’s more of a creeping rose than something that’s going to get high,” says Dave.

Knock Out roses: Because of their tall, vertical nature, they’re great behind a fence, at the back of a border or walkway or anywhere else they can be used as a tall screen or canvas upon which you can layer levels of shorter plants.

“Wherever you plant them, just make sure you’re OK with them getting this high,” says Dave, standing behind a shoulder-height Knock Out shrub.

Drift roses: “They stay smaller than Flower Carpet roses,” says Dave. “They’re best suited for a small container on the patio or balcony.”

The video's the best way, however, to get an idea of what these roses will look like in a few years, as opposed to what they look like when you buy them in the garden center. So check it out to decide which rose - or roses - might work best for you.