Chinese Rose, also known as “Yueji Hong,” “Yueyuehua,” or “Siji Hua,” belongs to the Rosales order, Rosaceae family, and Rosa genus. It is an evergreen to semi-evergreen, low-growing shrub. Chinese Rose is one of the top ten famous flowers in China and a globally popular ornamental flower, often referred to as the “Queen of Flowers.”
There are nearly ten thousand varieties of Chinese Rose worldwide, with beautiful and diverse blooms. They bloom throughout the year and come in various colors such as white, pink, red, purple, and yellow, making them highly beloved by people.
Basic Introduction
Chinese Rose: Known as the “Queen of Flowers” or “Yueyuehong,” Chinese Rose is an evergreen to semi-evergreen, low-growing shrub that blooms throughout the year. Its flowers are typically red, but there are also pink, white, and yellow varieties.
Chinese Rose is widely cultivated as an ornamental plant and has medicinal uses as well. It has three natural varieties, and modern Chinese Rose cultivars exhibit diverse flower types, including single and double blooms, as well as various elegant forms such as high-centered and ruffled edges.
Chinese Rose flowers come in vibrant and rich colors, including red, pink, yellow, white, and variegated varieties. Most cultivars are fragrant. There are nearly ten thousand Chinese Rose varieties worldwide, with over a thousand varieties in China.
The natural flowering period of Chinese Rose is from April to September. The flowers are large, opening from the inside out in a diffuse manner, and emit a strong fragrance. Chinese Rose is widely used in horticulture and as a cut flower. It is adaptable, cold-resistant, and drought-tolerant, making it suitable for both ground planting and container cultivation.
Chinese Rose is commonly used to beautify courtyards, adorn gardens, decorate flower beds, plant hedges, and create flower arches. It is easy to cultivate and can be used as a cut flower for bouquets and various floral arrangements.
The flowers can also be used to extract essential oils and have medicinal properties. Chinese Rose has good antifungal and synergistic antifungal activities. Red cut roses have become a popular gift among lovers and a frequent theme in love poetry.
China is one of the original habitats of Chinese Rose. Chinese Rose flowers are beautiful and diverse, blooming throughout the year, which has earned them great popularity. In May 1985, Chinese Rose was ranked fifth among China’s top ten famous flowers.
Varieties of Chinese Rose
There are various types of Chinese Rose, including edible roses, climbing roses, large-flowered hybrid teas, floribunda roses, miniature roses, shrub roses, hybrid perpetual roses, and groundcover roses.
Climbing Roses
Climbing roses bloom all year round and are characterized by their tall and vigorous growth. They are generally considered shrubs and have strong disease resistance. Climbing roses have extensive management, are tolerant of pruning, and offer a wide variety of flower types. Their flowers are vibrant, diverse, and long-lasting, with colors ranging from scarlet red, deep red, bright red, pink, golden yellow, orange-yellow, to bicolor and pure white.
Large-Flowered Hybrid Teas
Most of the roses used as cut flowers are large-flowered hybrid teas. These roses are known for their robust plant growth, numerous flower colors, and large, elegant, and beautiful blooms. They come in various bright and vivid colors, and when in bloom, their flowers are often large and emit a fragrant aroma, making them highly ornamental.
Floribunda Roses
Floribunda roses have clustered flower heads and exhibit strong resistance to drought, waterlogging, diseases, cold, and high temperatures. They are widely used for landscaping flower beds, urban greening, and roadside plantings along highways.
Miniature Roses
Miniature roses are new varieties within the rose family. They have a dwarf and compact growth habit, forming ball-shaped bushes with numerous flower heads. Due to their unique characteristics, they are also known as “Diamond Roses.” They are mainly used for potted ornamental purposes, as accents in lawns, and for creating floral patterns.
Standard Roses
Standard roses, also known as tree roses or rose trees, are created through grafting techniques to achieve a standard upright trunk and crown.
Advantages: Standard roses have excellent ornamental effects, with unique and elegant shapes and distinct layers, providing a refreshing visual experience. They come in various forms, such as ball-shaped, fan-shaped, waterfall-shaped, and miniature varieties. They retain the advantages of regular roses, including strong fragrance, long flowering period, and diverse flower colors, while showcasing a more updated, noble, and vibrant appearance, thus possessing higher aesthetic value.
Characteristics: Strong adaptability. The flower corolla of standard roses is elevated above the ground, making it less susceptible to soil-borne diseases and pests. The trunk is derived from the rose family (Rosaceae), with a well-developed root system and strong vitality. Standard roses are particularly suitable for areas with high alkalinity where growing regular roses is challenging, filling the gap in such environments.
Growth and Distribution
Growing Conditions
While Chinese Rose is not very demanding in terms of climate and soil, loose, fertile, organically rich, slightly acidic, and well-drained soil is preferable. Chinese Rose thrives in warm, sunny, and well-ventilated environments. Most varieties have an optimal temperature range of 15-26°C during the day and 10-15°C at night. They enter a dormant state when the winter temperature drops below 5°C.
Some varieties can withstand temperatures as low as -15°C and as high as 35°C. When the temperature exceeds 30°C during the summer, they enter a semi-dormant state, resulting in poor plant growth, smaller and fewer petals, and dull and non-glossy colors, losing their ornamental value.
Distribution Range
China is one of the original habitats of Chinese Rose. Modern Chinese Rose cultivars have extremely complex genetic relationships. Chinese Rose is the city flower of Beijing and Changzhou in China. Jiangsu’s Shuyang County is a major production base for Chinese Rose in East China. The roses produced in Shuyang County, Nanyang in Henan, and Laizhou in Shandong are well-known both domestically and internationally.
Morphology and Characteristics
The Chinese Rose is an upright shrub, standing 1-2 meters tall; its branches are stout and cylindrical, nearly hairless with short, coarse hook-shaped thorns. It carries 3-5, rarely 7, leaflets on a leafstalk that is 5-11 cm long. The leaflets are broadly ovate to oblong-ovate, measuring 2.5-6 cm in length and 1-3 cm in width. The leaf tip tapers gradually, with the base near circular or broad wedge-shaped. The leaf edges have sharp serrations, and both surfaces are nearly hairless.
The upper surface is dark green, often glossy, while the underside is lighter in color. The terminal leaflet has a stalk, while the lateral leaflets barely have any. The leafstalk is long, carrying scattered thorns and glandular hairs. The stipules are mostly adnate to the leafstalk, with only the tip parting to form an ear shape, their edges often have glandular hairs.
The flowers, few in clusters, rarely solitary, measure 4-5 cm in diameter; the pedicel is 2.5-6 cm long, nearly hairless or glandular-haired. The sepals are ovate with a caudate tip, sometimes leaf-like, often with feathery incisions along the edges, rarely entire, hairless on the outside, densely coated with long soft hairs on the inside.
The petals are double or semi-double, in shades of red, pink, to white, they are inversely ovate, with a notch at the tip and a wedge-shaped base. The styles are free, extending out of the calyx tube, roughly equal in length with the stamens. The fruit is ovate or pear-shaped, 1-2 cm long, red, with the sepals falling off. The fruiting period is from June to November. The natural flowering period is from April to September.
Methods for Cultivating the Chinese Rose
Soil
For outdoor cultivation, choose a location that’s elevated, sunny, well-ventilated, with mildly acidic soil. Deeply till the soil during planting, and add organic fertilizer as a base. For pot cultivation, use humus-rich and mildly acidic sandy soil, avoid alkaline soil. Before the new buds sprout in the spring, replace the potting soil once a year to promote vigorous growth. Changing the soil helps the plant to bloom in that year.
Chinese roses can be grown in pots of any material, terracotta pots are also suitable. When preparing the nutrient soil, pay attention to drainage, ventilation, and nutrient balance. The ratio is garden soil: leaf mold soil: rice hull ash = 5:3:2. Around the time of overwintering each year, it is suitable to repot, prune roots, and change the soil. Increase the pot diameter yearly, with terracotta pots being the best.
Light
Chinese roses love sunlight. During the growing season, they need plenty of sunshine, at least 6 hours of exposure a day. Otherwise, the plant will only grow leaves and not bloom, and even if buds form, the flowers will lack color and fragrance after blooming.
Watering
Watering Chinese roses requires particular attention; it should be done when the soil is dry, watering thoroughly each time. The plant is sensitive to waterlogging, so there should not be standing water in the pot as this can cause root rot. During the hot summer season, water once a day, and water when the surface of the pot soil turns white.
During the winter dormant period, water less, keeping the soil semi-moist. The watering of Chinese roses varies with the season, keep the soil moist during the winter dormant period, it’s enough to not let it dry out. In early spring, when the branches start to grow and the leaves expand, slightly increase the amount of water, watering once in the morning and evening each day. During the peak growth and flowering period, increase the amount of water.
In high summer temperatures, the evaporation of water increases, and the plant is in a weakened semi-dormant state. It is most afraid of dehydration, water once in the morning and evening every day to avoid sun exposure.
When watering in high temperatures, a small amount of water should seep out from the bottom of the pot each time, indicating that it’s thoroughly watered. Avoid splashing water on the leaves when watering to prevent disease.
Overwintering
During winter, if indoor heating is available, it’s best to keep the room temperature above 18℃ and ensure at least 6 hours of daylight per day. If there’s no heating, let the rose naturally enter dormancy. As winter begins, after the leaves have fallen, trim each branch to leave only about 5 centimeters.
Cut off all branches longer than this, and store the pot in a cool place around 0℃. The soil in the pot should be slightly dry, but not overly so, to prevent desiccation.
Fertilizing
Chinese roses are fertilizer-loving plants. For potted roses, frequent fertilizing is necessary during the growing season, with a weak fertilizer solution applied every ten days. No matter what type of fertilizer is used, remember not to overdo it to prevent damage to the seedlings. However, do not fertilize during winter dormancy.
Organic fertilizers, such as composted cow manure, chicken manure, bean cake, and oilseed rape cake, are ideal as slow-release base fertilizers. Apply a liquid fertilizer every half month to keep the leaves thick, deep green, and glossy. Just before the buds sprout in early spring, apply a stronger liquid fertilizer. During flowering, refrain from fertilizing.
After the flowers have faded in June, another round of liquid fertilizer can be applied. Apply a medium strength liquid fertilizer once more when the fourth or fifth auxiliary bud develops in September. Use well-rotted organic fertilizer for wintering in December.
Winter plowing can be done with human manure or mature organic fertilizers, then turned into the soil. Apply fertilizers frequently during the growing period and 1-2 times quick-acting fertilizer after the flowers fade. Apply thin fertilizer during high temperatures and dry spells, and the last round of fertilizer before winter. Be sure to remove weeds timely before fertilizing.
Ventilation
Whether cultivated in a courtyard or on a balcony, good ventilation is essential. With proper air circulation, Chinese roses can grow robustly and be less susceptible to pests and diseases.
Temperature
Chinese roses prefer cool and warm climates and are heat intolerant. The optimal temperature range is between 18-28℃. Flower bud differentiation will be inhibited when the temperature exceeds 32℃. Therefore, during the high temperatures of summer, Chinese roses usually don’t bloom, and if a few flowers do appear, they are less vibrant than those grown at normal temperatures. During hot weather, you can move the pot to a cooler place for care.
Pruning
After blooming, trim off withered buds. When the Chinese rose starts to bud, leave one well-shaped bud and remove the rest. The goal is to leave one bud per branch, allowing the future flowers to bloom fully, beautifully, and intensely fragrant.
Thorough pruning must be done after each blooming period. Generally, light pruning is advisable. Timely removal of faded flowers and weak, crossing, overlapping branches is needed, leaving only thick, young branches.
Starting from the base, leave 3-6 centimeters, favoring the outer buds, and trim to form a natural open heart shape to maintain a visually appealing plant shape and prolong the flowering period. Additionally, potted Chinese roses should be of varieties that are dwarf, prolific bloomers with a strong fragrance.
Summer pruning mainly involves removing sprouts and buds from the grafted rootstock and trimming off faded flowers and leaves. Thin out excess buds to reduce nutrient consumption, creating favorable conditions for the next blooming period.
To maintain a visually pleasing plant shape, cut off 1/3 or half of the long branches, and 1/3 of the medium branches, making a slanting cut about 1 centimeter above a leaf. If pruned too lightly, the plant will grow taller, the branches will become thinner, and the flowers will bloom smaller.
Winter pruning varies with variety and cultivation purposes, leaving branches while paying attention to the overall shape of the plant. For large-flowered varieties, leave 4-6 branches, each 30-45 centimeters long, and select a strong lateral bud, cutting off the upper part of the branch. Climbing or vine-like varieties should focus on removing old branches, cutting off weak or diseased branches, and nurturing the main stem.
Propagation Methods for the Chinese Rose
Grafting
Typically using wild roses as rootstocks, grafting can be split into budding and branch grafting. Budding generally achieves a higher survival rate, and is usually conducted from August to September. The graft should ideally be as close to the ground as possible. The specific method involves making a “T” incision in the bark of the rootstock’s stem with a budding knife, and then selecting a bud from a well-developed branch of the current year’s growth from the rose. After inserting the bud into the “T” incision, tie it with a plastic bag and provide some shade. The graft should heal within about two weeks.
Seeding
This refers to propagation through sowing seeds in the spring. The seeds can be either pit sown or trench sown, usually germinating in mid to late April. Transplanting times are divided into spring and autumn planting, usually carried out in late autumn after defoliation or before sap flow in early spring.
Division
Propagation by division is generally done in early spring or late autumn. The method involves digging out the entire rose plant with some soil and dividing it. Each plant should have 1 to 2 branches and some fibrous roots, and can be planted in a pot or in the open ground. The plant will flower in the same year.
Cutting
Usually done during the rose’s dormant period in early spring or late autumn, cuttings are taken from mature branches with 3 to 4 buds. If using softwood cuttings, shade is required and the seedbed must be kept moist. Cuttings will typically root within about 30 days, with a survival rate of 70% to 80%. If the cuttings are dipped in rooting hormone, the survival rate will be even higher.
Layering
This is usually done in summer. The method involves bending a branch from the Chinese rose and pressing it into the soil. On the middle part of the branch that is in the soil, remove half a ring of bark to expose the branch tip. After this branch has produced adventitious roots and grown new leaves, it can be cut off from the mother plant.
Value and Other Attributes
Benefits and Effects of Chinese Roses
Medicinal Value
The flowers can be used to extract fragrances. The roots, leaves, and flowers all have medicinal uses, providing blood circulation stimulation, swelling reduction, and inflammation relief. Additionally, it is an excellent herb for gynecological health.
Traditional Chinese medicine views the Chinese rose as sweet and warm in nature, benefiting liver meridian and having effects in promoting blood circulation, regulating menstruation, reducing swelling, and detoxifying. Due to the rose’s notable effect on promoting blood circulation, activating qi, and relieving pain, it is often used to treat menstrual disorders and dysmenorrhea.
For excessive menstruation or leukorrhea, 15g of Chinese rose flowers (or roots) can be decocted in water or stewed with pork; 10g of Chinese rose flowers and 12g of jujube can be boiled together, and honey can be added after it turns into a soup.
This recipe is both fragrant and sweet, does not taste like medicine, and is very effective for heat during menstruation. Furthermore, women often use Chinese rose petals to make tea or add them to other beauty teas, which can help promote blood circulation and enhance beauty.
Landscaping
The Chinese rose holds an irreplaceable value in landscaping and is the most frequently used flower in gardens across both northern and southern regions. The Chinese rose is a key ornamental flower in spring, boasting a long blooming period, high aesthetic value, and affordability, making it a favorite in gardens everywhere. It can be used in the layout of flower beds, borders, and courtyard materials, and can be fashioned into bonsai, cut flowers, flower baskets, bouquets, and more.
Due to its climbing growth habit, the Chinese rose is primarily used for vertical greening, and it has a unique role in creating beautiful street landscapes and flower environments. It can form pleasing flower paths and pillars, and can be used to make various arches, grids, and frame-style structures for the Chinese rose to climb. With appropriate pruning and shaping, it can decorate buildings, becoming a clever “link” between architecture and gardens.
Environmental Impact
Chinese roses can be used to create continuous hedges, flower screens, and flower walls for agencies, schools, residential areas, and city squares. Not only can they purify the air and beautify the environment, but they can also significantly reduce noise pollution in surrounding areas and alleviate the greenhouse effect in hot summer cities.
Chinese roses are adept at absorbing harmful gases, such as hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen fluoride, benzene, and phenol, and also show strong resistance to sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide. Thus, the Chinese rose is a great plant for protecting the human living environment.
Plant Culture
Culture
Though the Chinese rose holds a modest place in traditional Chinese culture, new archaeological findings suggest that it was a totem plant of the northern tribes of the Huaxia ancestors, which is equivalent to the legendary tribe of the Yellow Emperor. It is one of China’s ten famous flowers.
The Chinese rose, hailed as the “Queen of Flowers,” embodies a spirit of tenacity and emits a long-lasting fragrance. Originally from China, it has been cultivated since the Han Dynasty, and its cultivation has never ceased since the Tang and Song Dynasties. Many literati have left poems praising the Chinese rose. The famous Tang Dynasty poet Bai Juyi once wrote, “It blooms late, after spring has gone, standing alone in the splendor of the courtyard.”
The Ming Dynasty poet Zhang Xin wrote, “Each message from the flowers brings a renewal, half belonging to the east wind, half to the dust. This flower alone never tires of blooming, claiming all four seasons as spring.” Han Qi of the Northern Song Dynasty lavished it with even more praise: “While peonies rely on spring winds and chrysanthemums lament in late clusters, this flower, in all its radiant beauty, unfurls in shades of red throughout the four seasons.
In the 18th century, the Chinese rose was introduced to Europe from India. After repeated hybridization with local roses by breeders, the hybrid tea rose was finally cultivated in 1867. It quickly gained popularity around the world and was hailed as the “Queen of Flowers”. As a symbol of happiness, beauty, peace, and friendship, it is well-loved by people. Some countries have chosen it as their national flower.
The Chinese rose is the national flower of countries such as Luxembourg, Iraq, and Syria.
Flower Language of Roses
Red roses represent pure love, passionate love or admirable passion, chastity, and more. People often use it as a token of love, a synonym for love, and it is the first choice for Valentine’s Day. The bud of a red rose also represents loveliness.
White roses symbolize respect and nobility. In Japan, white roses (Chinese roses) symbolize paternal love and are the main flower used for Father’s Day.
Pink roses represent first love; black roses represent individuality and creativity.
Blue-purple roses represent rarity and preciousness.
Orange-yellow roses represent youthfulness and beauty.
Yellow roses represent apology (but to the French, it implies jealousy or infidelity).
Green-white roses symbolize innocence, simplicity, or a pure heart.
Bicolor roses represent contradiction or having multiple interests.
Tricolor roses represent being knowledgeable, talented, and affectionate.
Peggie was once a high school mathematics teacher, but she set aside her chalkboard and textbooks to follow her lifelong passion for flowers. After years of dedication and learning, she not only established a thriving flower shop but also founded this blog, “Flowers Library”. Here, Peggie shares the art and science of floristry, offers practical tips for nurturing plants, delves into the captivating histories of various species, and provides insights into running a successful flower shop. She hopes that everyone can take a moment now and then to immerse themselves in the world of flowers. If you have any questions or wish to learn more about flowers, feel free to contact Peggie.
