@nic – thank you. I think this facility is very useful in concept, but to be of any practical benefit it needs to be refined and enhanced. The problem is that we do not have an effective way of categorising roses. One of the shortcomings is that the use of tags is not widespread. A search of “plants” for “hybrid tea” (one of the most common rose categories) identifies only seven roses, only one of them tagged – and that has two tags: “hybrid” and “tea”. The remaining six have the words “hybrid” and “tea” in the variety name (which is incorrect anyway). Certainly, an extensive editing operation can fix this shortcoming, but it will only be truly effective if all the editors are singing from the same song-sheet. You have provided a song-sheet, but in order to be useful and produce a satisfactory outcome it needs to be written in one language. Here are some examples:
patio_rose is useful; patio is not
floribunda_rose is useful; floribunda is not
shrub_rose is useful; shrub is not
red_rose is useful; neither red nor rose are not
Austin and David_Austin are OK; David_Austin_rose is better
heirloom_rose is useful; heirloom is not
hybrid_tea_rose is useful; the same words used individually are not.

I think it is quite dangerous to have a list of suggestions on the editing page which are based on common usage. Firstly, the frequency of their use is not solely in tags, but in plant names and varieties. Secondly, many (most, even) are at worst useless and at best, less than optimal. Third, they provide for no consistency. Why are they dangerous? Because, being before the eyes of the editor or initiator of the wiki, they are the most likely to be used. The idea of having a list of suggested tags is great, but they need to be useful tags and they need to be used consistently by editors.

Here is a list which I suggest. It includes both recognised rose types and descriptive terms. Some of them, being synonyms or alternatives to other included terms are included because they may be familiar to an editor while the other is not. In such cases, further editing might add the alternative tag/s. I think the list includes most categories and sub-categories used by rose enthusiasts, but if anyone should wish to suggest additions, that would be great. Likewise, there will undoubtedly be further descriptive terms that would be useful. In my opinion, this list (with or without amendments and/or additions or exclusions) should replace the “most popular” list on the edit page. Then, with persistent editing, there is no reason why we cannot create the single most useful rose “search engine” on the web.

modern_rose
shrub_rose
bush_rose
climbing_rose
rambling_rose
floribunda_rose
hybrid_tea_rose
hybrid_wichurana_rose
hybrid_gallica_rose
hybrid_perpetual_rose
hybrid_china_rose
tea_rose
species_rose
red_rose
yellow_rose
orange_rose
pink_rose
white_rose
cream_rose
black_rose
blue_rose
purple_rose
variegated_rose
fragrant_rose
english_rose
david_austin_rose
knockout_rose
moss_rose
old_garden_rose
old_fashioned_rose
heirloom_rose
polyantha_rose
heritage_rose
rugosa_rose
carpet_rose
cabbage_rose
centifolia_rose
noisette_rose
portland_rose
miniflora_rose
boursault_rose
ayrshire_rose
alba_rose
damask_rose
patio_climbing_rose
ground_cover_rose
grandiflora_rose
miniature_rose
wild_rose
large_flowered_climbing_rose

This post has been split into a new conversation: Tags not being used in Search

Hi Nic
I tried to see if i could search by tag and didnt come up with anything. If i just try for instance typing a tag into the search box nothing comes up. If i look at the plants page there is a ’search by tag" with a few tage listed but clicking on the tags doesnt bring up anything.

Prickles, they don’t mean Wikipedia.com, they mean the wiki on here. Here is the one for knockout rose: http://myfolia.com/plants/157-rose-rosa/varieties/7858-knockout

personally I think that for colors, both yellow and yellow_rose are good. What if someone is doing a specific color, but don’t have a specific plant in mind? They could search yellow and come up with black eyed susan, marigold, and golden showers for instance and narrow things down from there.

also something like patio could also be useful if someone only has a patio to work with. Not everyone is able to have a yard to garden in and being able to search just patio and see what they can grow would be nice. Hopefully their search would turn up roses, blueberries, tomatoes, and peppers among others.

I just picked knockout because it was the first on the rose list. :) Glad it worked out.

and you didn’t but into anything. that’s what I love about folia. It’s for everyone. no one is excluded here unless you hate plants and then why would you be here? :) Feel free to edit any wiki here as long as you have accurate info and keep personal opinion to your own pages. Even if you just know that something is a perennial and have no other info on it that can help complete that page.

@Prickles – I’m delighted that you want to help, and thank you for the suggested additions and alphabetical format. I shall post a rearranged list, including additional categories, on this thread later today.
graibeard has been an enormous help to me in getting me started on wiki editing. He reviews my edits very promptly and keeps me on the straight and narrow with constructive suggestions. I’m sure he’ll do the same for you. There has not been a lot of wiki development in the roses section to date and, in particular, tagging is almost non-existent so there is potential for building a useful resource from the ground up.
There seems to be general confusion about the status of the name “knockout” in relation to roses, and no-one was more confused than me when I first encountered it. Happens it is an American commercial marketing innovation and The Knock Out® Family of Roses comprises seven selected hybrid rose varieties. So although “Knockout” appears as number one on the Folia list of popular roses, in fact it is not a variety as such. It seems to me that it could be compared, conceptually, with “The English Rose Collection”. This obviously needs to be addressed in the wiki context but to date I’ve let it be.
Most of my activity thus far has been simply working through the alphabetical index of rose varieties and editing (in many cases initiating) the respective wikis of those varieties which have more than one planting registered on Folia. So far I’m just into the B section. On completion, my plan is to have a second sweep, picking up those with a single planting, and then a third for those which have no plantings to date. An important part of the task, in my opinion, is to request the merging into one of those varieties which appear under multiple names. In doing this, one has to make a judgement call as to which is the most commonly used. In many cases, varieties are listed under their registration names. These are names allocated for use prior to their being given a marketing name. AUScot (note the distinctive three capitals which refer to the breeder), for example, is the registration name for Rose Abraham Darby. In these cases, unless there is evidence that a rose variety has been marketed using the reistration name, I have been requesting that they be merged with the same rose under its marketing name, and mentioning the registration name only under “etymology” i.e. not as an alternative common name where it appears in the heading as an AKA. There are numerous references to use as research resources, both on the internet and in book form. Here’s one that I find useful. Here’s another.

@Prickles – Hmm… it doesn’t get any less complicated, does it? I’m just a simple country lad who doesn’t even begin to understand the intricacies of the commercial world, but shouldn’t Meilland be classified as a breeder (albeit a corporate one)? Perhaps their Romantica® Collection and the Conard-Pyle Company’s Star® Roses should have the same status as Knock Out® roses? I don’t know. Where do we need to insert a “®” and where don’t we? It all gets a bit hard, doesn’t it? If it can be done without getting nic and nath into any bother, I would personally prefer to dispense with all the ® stuff. What’s the legality of it all, nic?

Tom, when I said “Meilland roses” I was talking about Papa Meilland and his family who in about 1995 (don’t hold me to the date) began giving different names to established roses that they also raised and sold. At the time I think they were using a prefix of Mediland or somesuch which I thought sounded like a health insurance group.

Um, rather like I would say such-and-such rose is one of Treloar’s or Nieuwesteeg’s. (growers and wholesalers).

I don’t wish to denigrate Meilland in any way as they have been responsible for some stunning roses such as Peace (which Peter Beales claims to be the finest HT ever raised), Michele Meilland (one of my faves), Charles Mallerin, Papa Meilland, Sonia and Bonica.

EDIT: My memory has returned, lesson learnt – when stumped, stop thinking or think about something else. It works!

Meidiland roses was what I was thinking of – weren’t they a series of so-called carpet roses?

‘Procumbent’ is another type of category. Mentioning ‘Bonica’ made me think of it.

mm, I didn’t like the idea of just colours being on Tomartyr’s list but, on thinking about it and after reading some of the comments on colours I can see the merit of that.

@Prickles – Thank you for your suggestions. Here is the list of suggested rose tags in alphabetical order. Also included are Bourbon rose, procumbent rose and hybrid musk rose.
alba_rose
ayrshire_rose
black_rose
blue_rose
bourbon_rose
boursault_rose
bush_rose
cabbage_rose
carpet_rose
centifolia_rose
climbing_rose
cream_rose
damask_rose
david_austin_rose
english_rose
floribunda_rose
fragrant_rose
grandiflora_rose
ground_cover_rose
heirloom_rose
heritage_rose
hybrid_china_rose
hybrid_gallica
hybrid_musk_rose
hybrid_perpetual_rose
hybrid_tea
hybrid_wichurana
knock_out_rose
large_flowered_climbing_rose
miniature_rose
miniflora_rose
modern_rose
moss_rose
noisette_rose
old_fashioned_rose
old_garden_rose
orange_rose
patio_rose
pink_rose
polyantha_rose
portland_rose
procumbent_rose
purple_rose
rambling_rose
red_rose
rugosa_rose
shrub_rose
species_rose
tea_rose
variegated_rose
white_rose
wild_rose
yellow_rose

I go along with what anelson said.

A very wise old gardener who taught me a lot about gardening would always say when asked did he know what this rose was would answer: “Most times I can’t tell you what it is but I can sure tell you what it ain’t”.