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Tea rose

Cliff from Arlington, Virginia, USA / Wikimedia Commons - CC BY 2.0

Tea rose

Rosa × odorata

The tea rose is the hybrid of the China rose and the giant Yunnan rose (Rosa gigantea), named for the scent of China tea that growers found in its flowers, and an ancestor of the hybrid tea roses. Its wild forms grow in Yunnan in southwest China, where Flora of China describes an evergreen or semi-evergreen shrub that climbs or scrambles on long trailing branches, with very fragrant flowers, white or tinged with pink, yellow or orange, from June to September; citing Fu (1992), it calls the wild plant rare and threatened by habitat loss. The garden forms came to Europe from Chinese gardens: Trees and Shrubs Online says the first, 'Hume's Blush Tea-scented China', arrived a few years before 1810, and that most modern hybrid teas have it in their ancestry. Many old roses long grown as China roses, including 'Mutabilis' and the green rose, are now placed here. It is a tender rose: Plants For A Future lists zones 6 to 9 but says it is not fully hardy in Britain and does best against a sunny wall. Like other garden roses it is open to rose rosette disease, which the USDA Forest Service FEIS review says can spread from wild multiflora rose.

Climate fit: narrow (30/100)

Focal point

Structure

Border

Light

Full sun / Part sun

Water

Moderate water

Mature size

4.9-19.7 ft tall · 4.9 ft apart

Hardy in zones

6a-9b

cold to frosty winters

Life cycle

Perennial

Native status

Cultivated - no wild native range

Related products

Cold hardiness

These values are location-based: this location's current hardiness is the baseline, and the 2050 value is a projected future climate for this same location.

Now

Zone 6b

Plotwright

USDA Zone 6b

-5°F to 0°F

Well-suited

2050

2100

Zone 7a

Plotwright

0°F to 5°F

Well-suited

In plain terms: This location has cold winters. Its winters are projected to keep warming through 2050.

✓

Well-suited today and still thriving in 2050.

Heat tolerance

Heat tolerance values are location-based too: heat days today are observed at this site, and the 2050 value projects this same location under a future climate.

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Where this plant fits

Suitable across 30 ecoregions - 26 climate-resilient through 2070 · 1 suited today · 3 newly possible by 2070. Best matches first.

Appalachian mixed mesophytic forests

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Appalachian-Blue Ridge forests

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Arizona Mountains forests

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Atlantic coastal pine barrens

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Blue Mountains forests

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Central Pacific Northwest coastal forests

Cross-Timbers savanna-woodland

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Eastern Australian temperate forests

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What it needs

Conditions

Light

Full sun / Part sun

Water

Moderate water

Spacing

4.9 ft

Habit

Evergreen or semi-evergreen shrub that climbs or scrambles on long, trailing branches armed with scattered, curved, flattened prickles in the wild; garden forms such as 'Mutabilis' make lax bushes with few prickles

Care tips

•

In cooler gardens plant it against a sunny wall; Plants For A Future says that is where it does best in Britain, where it is not fully hardy.

•

If a hard winter cuts it down, wait before giving up: Trees and Shrubs Online says 'Mutabilis' regrows with shoots 3 to 4 feet long after being cut to the ground.

•

Look for wild multiflora rose near your garden: the USDA Forest Service FEIS review says rose rosette disease can spread from infected multiflora rose to ornamental roses, though plants more than 330 feet away are unlikely to pass it on.

Lifecycle

Planting

Plants For A Future says it succeeds in most soils, preferring a circumneutral soil and a sunny position; it grows well in heavy clay and dislikes waterlogged soil. In cool climates give it a sunny wall: Plants For A Future says it is not fully hardy in Britain and is best grown in the shelter of one, and Trees and Shrubs Online says 'Mutabilis' trained against a wall will spread indefinitely. Wikipedia says 'Mutabilis' prefers an open position in full sun.

Transplanting

None of the sources gives advice on moving an established tea rose. Plants For A Future says suckers divided in the dormant season can be planted straight into their permanent positions.

Early growth

Plants For A Future says it prefers moist but well-drained soil. Trees and Shrubs Online says 'Mutabilis' is sometimes harmed by severe weather but sends up new shoots 3 to 4 feet long if cut to the ground, so a young plant damaged by frost can be cut back and left to regrow.

Maturity

Size depends on the form, and no source gives a spread for the hybrid as a whole. Plants For A Future gives up to 20 feet, Flora of China describes wild plants that climb or scramble on long, trailing branches, Wikipedia gives 'Mutabilis' as 4.9 feet tall and broad, and Trees and Shrubs Online says 'Mutabilis' makes a sheaf of branches 7 to 8 feet high in sheltered gardens and against a wall will spread indefinitely; the spread used here is the 'Mutabilis' figure. None of the sources lists problems for this hybrid itself. For roses in general, NC State Extension names Japanese beetles, rose chafer, rose thrips and mites among the pests, and botrytis, blights, powdery mildew, leaf spots and anthracnose among the diseases, Plants For A Future says roses are notably susceptible to honey fungus, and the USDA Forest Service FEIS review of multiflora rose says rose rosette disease can infect ornamental roses.

Propagation

Plants For A Future gives half-ripe cuttings with a heel in July in a shaded frame, which usually root well, and pencil-thick cuttings of the current year's wood, 8 to 10 inches long, set outdoors in a sheltered spot or a cold frame in early autumn, which can take a year to establish. Suckers can be divided in the dormant season, and layering also works. Seed is slow, often taking two years to germinate, and roses hybridize freely, so garden seed may not come true. Trees and Shrubs Online says the green rose 'Viridiflora' has no reproductive parts, so it sets no seed at all.

Pollination

Pollination not applicable

Grown for its flowers, so a garden needs no pollination plan. Plants For A Future records the flowers as hermaphrodite and bee-pollinated, and Flora of China describes red hips after flowering. Plants For A Future notes that roses hybridize freely, so seed may not come true, and Trees and Shrubs Online says the flowers of the green rose 'Viridiflora' have no reproductive parts at all.

Plants don't grow alone

Pollinates

Bee

European honeybee (Apis mellifera)

Plants For A Future records the tea rose as bee-pollinated without naming the bee, and NC State Extension says single-flowered roses are attractive to bees.

Fruit forage

Bird

Eastern songbirds (multi-species) (multiple species (Passeriformes))

NC State Extension says many birds and small mammals feed on rose hips, for the genus rather than this hybrid; the link applies where the tea rose is grown in eastern North America.

Shelter / habitat

Bee

Stem-nesting native bees (multiple genera (Ceratina, Hylaeus, Osmia, etc.))

NC State Extension says native bees nest in the dead, hollow stems of roses, for the genus rather than this hybrid, and suggests leaving dead stems cut back to 12 to 24 inches standing.

For people

Edibility undocumented

Grown as an ornamental, and the sources disagree on whether it is safe to eat. NC State Extension says rose hips and petals are edible for roses in general, and Plants For A Future lists the fruit of this hybrid, up to 1 inch across with a thin layer of flesh, and its seed as edible, warning that the hairs around the seeds irritate the mouth and digestive tract. GRIN Taxonomy, however, lists Rosa × odorata among vertebrate poisons for mammals, citing the AMA Handbook of Poisonous and Injurious Plants (Lampe and McCann, 1985), without saying which part or why. With that conflict unresolved, no verdict is given here, so do not eat it on the strength of this page. For pets, the ASPCA lists roses (Rosa species) as non-toxic to dogs, cats and horses; that entry covers the genus, not this hybrid by name.

Similar plants

Browse lateral options with similar roles, light needs, size, or native-range overlap; these are not filtered for a better climate fit.

Photinia × fraseri

Fraser Photinia

Fraser photinia is a large evergreen hybrid shrub bred at Fraser Nurseries in Alabama in the 1940s by crossing the Japanese Photinia glabra with the Chinese P. serratifolia; it has no wild native range. Its brilliant scarlet new growth, produced in flushes from spring through summer, made it one of the most planted hedging shrubs in the UK and southeastern US. The honest catch is Entomosporium leaf spot (Entomosporium maculatum): in humid climates this fungal disease causes progressive defoliation and can kill established plants over several seasons, making sustained dense hedging unreliable without repeated fungicide intervention or very good airflow.

Japanese privet is a dense evergreen shrub native to central and southern Japan (Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu, Okinawa) and Korea, widely planted across zones 7-10 as a fast-growing hedge and screen. Its glossy, dark-green waxy foliage and tolerance of heavy clipping make it a workhorse for privacy planting, and fragrant white panicles in late spring to early summer are a bonus. The honest catch is threefold: all parts - especially the purple-black berries that ripen from autumn into winter - are toxic to people, dogs, cats, and horses; the plant has become a documented invasive across roughly 11 south-eastern US states where it escapes cultivation into woodland edges; and its dense, fast growth can outcompete surrounding plantings if not clipped regularly.

Shrub

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

Heptacodium miconioides

Seven-son flower

Seven-son flower is a fast-growing deciduous shrub or small multi-stemmed tree native to cliffs and forest margins in Anhui and Zhejiang provinces of eastern China, where only about nine wild populations survive (IUCN Vulnerable). In gardens it earns its keep through an unusually long ornamental season: fragrant white flowers open in September, then the petals drop and the calyces swell and flush deep pinkish-red through October-November, extending the display well into autumn. The honest catch is size: it is genuinely vigorous and will reach 15 to 20 feet in a decade, making it unsuitable for small gardens unless committed to hard annual renewal pruning - and its spreading, suckering root system can colonize several feet beyond the canopy over time.

A deciduous shrub, also called European smoketree or smokebush, native from southern Europe east to China. Its tiny yellowish flowers are easy to miss; the show comes after them, when the spent flower clusters lengthen into stalks covered in fine hairs that turn a smoky pink to purplish pink and hang over the bush like puffs of smoke through summer. Bluish-green leaves turn yellow, orange and purplish-red in fall. It takes poor, dry, rocky soil and full sun, and is drought tolerant once established. It has many cultivars, including purple-leaved ones such as 'Royal Purple'; this record is the green-leaved species.

Spanish bayonet, also called aloe yucca, is the type species of the yucca genus: an evergreen, trunk-forming yucca of sand dunes, shell mounds and the edges of brackish marshes along the southeastern coast of the United States, from North Carolina to Florida and west to Louisiana. Every stiff, dark green leaf, up to 24 inches long, has finely toothed edges and ends in a very sharp spine, so where it goes is a decision, not a detail: NC State Extension says the points will keep out trespassers and advises keeping it away from traffic areas, and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center warns that the sharp-pointed leaves can be dangerous. It grows slowly into a clump of stems 10 to 15 feet tall, skirted with old dead leaves, and in summer raises panicles of fragrant, white, bell-shaped flowers that open at night. It tolerates salt spray and drought, which makes it a dune and seaside plant for zones 6 to 11, and the ASPCA lists yuccas as toxic to dogs, cats and horses.

Wintersweet is a deciduous shrub native to central and eastern China, cultivated for centuries for one extraordinary trick: small, waxy, intensely fragrant yellow flowers that open on bare stems in the depths of winter, from November through March in temperate gardens. It earns a place as a structural shrub near a path or door where the mid-winter scent can stop passersby in their tracks. The honest catch is a two-part burden - the plant is poisonous throughout (calycanthine in leaves, seeds, and stems poses real danger to pets and livestock), and for the other ten months of the year it is frankly dull: coarse, unremarkable deciduous foliage that turns at most a muted yellow in autumn and carries no ornamental fruit, making it a one-season performer that demands careful siting.

Educator packet

Plant packet

Tea rose educator packet

The tea rose is the hybrid of the China rose and the giant Yunnan rose (Rosa gigantea), named for the scent of China tea that growers found in its flowers, and an ancestor of the hybrid tea roses. Its wild forms grow in Yunnan in southwest China, where Flora of China describes an evergreen or semi-evergreen shrub that climbs or scrambles on long trailing branches, with very fragrant flowers, white or tinged with pink, yellow or orange, from June to September; citing Fu (1992), it calls the wild plant rare and threatened by habitat loss. The garden forms came to Europe from Chinese gardens: Trees and Shrubs Online says the first, 'Hume's Blush Tea-scented China', arrived a few years before 1810, and that most modern hybrid teas have it in their ancestry. Many old roses long grown as China roses, including 'Mutabilis' and the green rose, are now placed here. It is a tender rose: Plants For A Future lists zones 6 to 9 but says it is not fully hardy in Britain and does best against a sunny wall. Like other garden roses it is open to rose rosette disease, which the USDA Forest Service FEIS review says can spread from wild multiflora rose.

Scientific name

Rosa × odorata

Plant type

shrub

Hardiness

6a-9b

Light

full-sun, part-sun

Moisture

moderate

Spacing

4.9 ft