TYPES OF MINIATURE ROSES
The tight buds may be as big as the eraser on a pencil, or as tiny as a grain of unpolished rice, and the flowers may be single, semidouble, or double. The doubles may be formed like a hybrid tea or be full-petaled and fluffy, in clusters like a rambler rose. Some varieties stay very dwarf and bushy, from four to six inches tall; others are more robust, with larger flowers, and may grow to ten inches.
Climbing miniature roses are usually sports of bush varieties, with supple canes four or five feet long that can be trained on low fences, walls, trellises, or arches. Otherwise, every part is in perfect miniature scale.
All of these types are recognized by fanciers as authentic miniature roses because they grow on their own roots. And so is the rare tree or standard grown with a single trunk-like stem that is kept free of side growth, then pinched at the top to form a crown and symmetrical head. But standards that are budded or grafted onto the stems of other root stocks (which most of our American miniature tree roses are) are excluded by the experts, which is a matter of concern only to the serious collector.