Roses that are Classified as Modern Shrubs
Modern shrub roses are, by some measure, a collection of roses that do not fit in other classes. If we were talking about dogs, these might be the mongrels. And just as it is true in canines that relentless inbreeding inevitably reveals ever newer and more troublesome weaknesses peculiar to any breed and that a breed can only be assured of continued good health when new blood enters the line; so it is with roses. In this sense then, modern roses manage to be among the most vigorous and disease resistant roses recently bred. The analogy goes further, for the same mixed bag of genetic information that makes them robust gives them widely varied physical characteristics. So modern shrub roses are more varied than any other group of roses.
Pictured is Westerland growing in a garden it Berkeley California. The glowing orange blossoms are quite unlike those of any other rose. This rose grows to eight feet in every direction as a shrub and may reach twelve feet treated as a climber. Other roses on this list are smaller. Some produce flowers like those of hybrid tea roses: Amiga Mia, Hawkey Belle, Morden Blush. Many produce single flowers with five or so petals. A few such as Alchymist and Rosarium Utersen produce flat, rosette flowers. Others yet produce flowers that are double, loose, and floppy like those of Westerland. Sorting through the list can be slow gowing, but there's a lot of good material here for a lot of different kinds of gardens.