Kordes  Roses
The oldest name in rose hybridization is Kordes. The company recently celebrated it’s 130th anniversary. The third generation of the Kordes family is now running the business. The varieties are all successful in Europe.

Kordes varieties have won the prestigious ADR Award in Europe numerous times. The comparable award in the U.S. is the AARS. Kordes has never entered a rose into the AARS competition, because we would be comparing a rose grown free of chemicals with roses grown using fumigants and pesticides. It’s not comparing apples to apples so to speak.  AARS winners also come with a hefty fee that must be paid on each plant, ADR winners do not. 

The roses are bred in Germany, where environmental standards are much more stringent, and the use of chemicals is either limited or banned so disease resistance is bred into the plants.

Landscape Roses
The latest trend in roses are landscape roses; those that are easy to maintain and disease resistant. There are a couple of popular varieties that are sometimes difficult to get and always very expensive because of the enormous royalties and AARS fees. Kordes has varieties that will work as a great alternative and the royalties are manageable.  Some AARS winners have royalties and fees that are over $2.50 per plant, Kordes’ most expensive royalty is 46 cents.