If you grow roses, you probably grow Hybrid Teas. Most garden centres do a roaring trade in Hybrid Teas, with their upright habit, large flowers and long, elegant buds. Hybrid Teas are the darlings of florists, rose show judges and gardeners, but in rose history, they're comparative newcomers. The first rose recognised as a Hybrid Tea was bred less than 150 years ago in Lyon by Jean Baptiste Guillot. Shapely and silvery pink, it was judged best rose at the 1867 International Exhibition in Paris, it was named 'La France' by the Empress Eugenie. Before this, the most popular roses were Hybrid Perpetuals, those luscious cabbagey roses we see in Victorian paintings, and 'lea roses - so named because they were transported to Europe with boxes of tea by the ships of the East India Company.
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