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'Oxonianum' is not a legitimate cultivar name, but many sources sell a plant they identify as Geranium x oxonianum. This hybrid taxon cannot be listed among the species of Geranium because it is not an acceptable botanical name. It appears to be a man-made hybrid of G. endressii and G. versicolor and does not occur spontaneously in the wild.

Exciting, dramatic, and even flamboyant! Lustrous foliage, so glossy that it looks polished, encircles high-centered blooms of dark red, almost black, with a copper reverse. The blooms age to a russet-brick color that is equally striking. This hybrid tea does not have the typical upright and narrow habit of a hybrid tea in my garden. Its strong branches spread out, creating a bush that's 5-6 feet tall and 5-6 feet wide. This stunning rose does have one shortcoming: It has almost no heat resistance. During the hottest days of summer, some buds refuse to open, while the petals of the open blooms flatten out and lose their definition.

This floribunda has a nice bushy habit, creating a shrub that's as wide as it is tall and covered with blooms from top to bottom. The canes are strong and sturdy. The clustered blooms, in a pleasing blend of apricot and pink, are produced in profusion and are highly fragrant. They are also remarkably heat resistant, never losing the precise arrangement of their petals even on the hottest days of summer

Heaven on Earth is an interesting rose because the color of its blooms cannot be predicted. They're usually coral-orange, but sometimes they're closer to yellow or cream, and occasionally they're unmistakably pink. It's not an impressive rose bush. The canes and branches often are too weak to hold the large blooms upright.

The patent description of English Perfume states that the rose grows to 5.5 feet tall and 3.5 feet wide at maturity and that it produces large 5-inch blooms on long stems of 18-22 inches. I suppose this must be true of the grafted variety, but the rose has been available only on its own roots for many years now. I have two own-root English Perfume bushes and they're more like mini-flora roses: 2.5 feet tall and 2 feet wide, with blooms of 2-3 inches on short stems. I'd trade them for the grafted variety in a New York minute, but in the absence of that possibility, I'll never give them up. The elegant ruffled blooms override any drawback. The colors are exquisite -- a mauve center and outer petals of a pale silvery-lavender with mauve edges. The scent is also outstanding -- the damask fragrance of antique roses.

Purple Tiger is legendary for its poor health. Its purple and white blooms are quite beautiful and dramatic, but the rose bush itself has many drawbacks. It is not a vigorous rose, its canes and branches are weak, and it is so vulnerable to black spot that it usually loses most of its leaves early in spring and remains almost completely defoliated for much of the season. It also seems to have a shorter lifespan than other roses, typically dying after only 6 or 7 years of life.

Regatta has been very happy in my garden for the past 20 years. It has sturdy canes climbing to about 6 feet in height and blooms of a soft coral-pink with a cream reverse. It is an amazingly undemanding rose. It's growing under a huge black walnut tree, making the most of only a couple of hours of sun each day after the tree leafs out in spring. It's one of my roses with a raspberry scent, my favorite fragrance in roses.

This was one of the top performers in my garden for almost 25 years. It was large for a floribunda, about 5 feet tall and 3-4 feet wide, and it was generous with its blooms, producing clusters of perfectly shaped blooms of a coral-pink hue in large numbers for most of the year. It originally was growing in the dappled shade of a small oak tree. As the oak tree grew, so did the shade, and I moved the rose to a sunnier spot. That's where the gophers found it last year. Apparently, it's delicious in addition to having those other positive features. I will buy it again.

Queen Nefertiti's dark red buds are deceptive. They open into many-petaled, often quartered blooms that are pale apricot with a golden center, gradually fading to a peach and pink blend. It's one of the smaller Austin roses in my garden. It's such a pretty rose that I'm growing two of them because it deserves to be on display in more than one part of my garden. Both of mine are only 2 feet tall and 2 feet wide. The foliage is marred by rose slug damage for a couple of months each year, but it looks fine the rest of the year.

This is one of Dr. Buck's prettiest roses, producing blooms that are golden yellow with a red edge in full sun or pale yellow with a pink edge in dappled shade. I've bought the rose twice, from two different own-root nurseries. The first died quickly, after only a few months. The second is still alive, but it's only about 8 inches tall after 10 years in a good flower bed where every other plant is doing well. The shrub is supposed to be 3-5 feet tall, but I think that description might date back to the days when all Buck roses were grafted. If I ever find it grafted, I certainly will buy it.

When Pure Poetry first appeared in the Jackson & Perkins catalog about 20 years ago, everyone wanted it. It remained wildly popular for the next two or three years and then disappeared. It's now offered by a few own-root nurseries, but the photos of it on some of their websites bear little resemblance to the original Pure Poetry.

I bought mine the year it was introduced and it's been one of the top performers in my garden ever since. It is large for a floribunda, 5-6 feet tall and 4-5 feet wide, and it's extraordinarily generous with blooms. Carried in large clusters, the blooms open in a blend of pink and light orange and gradually fade to a light apricot blend, best described as peaches and cream. It is remarkably tolerant of a variety of conditions. It grew large and bloomed almost nonstop in the shade of a persimmon tree for its first 10 years in my garden, and it's still blooming almost nonstop in full sun now that the tree is gone.

Even with the most diligent pruning, Yves Piaget usually has an ungainly and asymmetrical habit. The thick branches persist in jutting out horizontally, so the bush is almost always wider than it is tall. In addition, it has a cloying anise scent, which is a fragrance I don't particularly like. In spite of these negative features, however, I'm happy to grow it just for the blooms. They are extra-large cupped blooms with about 80 beautifully ruffled petals.

This hybrid tea dates back to 1925, almost a century ago, and it's still popular with rose gardeners today. I think I'm growing it because of its historical importance in rose gardening and not because of any great affection for the rose. The blooms are pretty, starting out in a shade of pale lavender-pink and gradually aging to cream, with prominent stamens, but the bush itself does not have an attractive habit. Tall and narrow, it has perhaps the worst case of "bare-legs syndrome" in my garden. The blooms and foliage are located in the top third of the plant, so I have to grow the rose in the middle of a flower bed, hiding the bottom two-thirds behind other plants.

Tawny Tiger is a rose of the "curiosity" or "oddball" category, appealing to people who are drawn to uncommon rose colors. The bloom is light orange with dark russet-brown stripes. This striking color combination might be the rose's only strong point. The buds are a pretty shape, but the open blooms rarely hold any shape for long and are somewhat formless. The rose shrub is not particularly vigorous or bushy. In my garden it's a narrow shrub about 3 feet tall. In addition to these faults, the rose has no apparent resistance to pests and disease. The foliage of my rose is disfigured by black spot, rose slugs, and curculio weevils for several months each year.

This is a rose I acquired by chance. Ashdown sent it to me for free, as a consolation prize when the nursery was unable to send me some of the roses in an order. I probably never would have ordered it on my own because it's just another red hybrid tea, but I'm so glad it's in my garden. It grows large in my zone, climbing to about 6 feet and spreading 4-5 feet. It never stops blooming, even on the hottest days of summer, and the bright red blooms, unaffected by heat or rain, are set off by shiny dark-green foliage.

I've grown Edith Holden for about 30 years, but each Edith Holden I've bought has not lasted long. The one currently growing in my garden is the fourth. It has been here for about 8 years, but it's failing now. I suspect this is a rose that needs to be grafted. Unfortunately, I've only been able to buy it in the own-root variety. It's a weak rose, with thin canes rising no more than 3 feet from the ground, and it's fairly stingy with its blooms.

Why do I persist in trying to grow it? Because the few blooms the rose produces have an irresistible color from start to finish, starting out in a russet-brick shade, almost brown, and gradually turning smoky-violet. These colors complement the large golden center of the bloom.

This rose is one of the stars of my garden in May and June. It can climb as high as 20 feet, and its canes stay pliable for a long time, so it can be wound around pillars or trained on tellises and arbors quite easily -- extremely easily, in fact, because it is not a thorny rose. The large clusters of small cupped blooms start out a bluish-purple and gradually fade to lavender and silver. It is a once-bloomer, but many once-bloomers occasionally rebloom in my zone if they are pruned soon after the blooming stage has been completed. Veilchenblau has a second bloom cycle about once every three years in my garden. The rebloom is sparse but nevertheless quite welcome.

There are several roses named Paprika. This is the oldest of them -- a Tantau floribunda bred in the 1950s. It is a small rose, usually not much more than 2 feet tall, with an exceptionally attractive habit. It is bushy from top to bottom, forming a pretty ball of color. The clustered blooms are semi-double, showing off their prominent stamens. They have a unique color blend -- bright brick-red with a purple center.

This pretty floribunda was introduced in the United States 50 years ago and is still popular today. It's a small rose bush, usually less than 3 feet tall, and has only a slight fragrance, but its high-centered blooms are a lovely blend of pink petals with a golden-yellow reverse.

This rose has been a disappointment. The apricot blend of colors in the blooms looked so appealing in photos that I ordered two from a mail-order nursery. Aprikola is a floribunda, but I had read the descriptions stating that it was a groundcover rose of only 1-2 feet in height, so I didn't expect them to get very tall. I did expect them to spread, however. Both failed to thrive. The location was not the problem because they were planted in different parts of my garden, in beds with other roses exhibiting no problems. The nursery was not the problem because other plants from the same order grew well. One of the Aprikola bushes languished for years and finally died. The other is still alive, but it's still the same size it was when I bought it --- about 5" x 5". Ironically, the rose is also sold as Apricot Vigorosa, but in my garden it has been the antithesis of a vigorous rose.