Roses, roses, all the way

The idea was that I would feature each of my roses on here as they came into bloom.  However, I notice that everyone else’s are out, but in my sad shaded garden mine have been lagging behind!  Still, here are some choice offerings.

This is Frau Dagmar Hastrupp, a large but delicate and fragrant Rosa Rugosa on a tall spiny bush with dark foliage.  She was bred in Germany (or Denmark, depending on which rose dictionary you read) in 1914.  There are various versions of her name – she may have been the wife of a Danish rose-breeder.  She produces only a few flowers in my garden, but battles on from year to year.  The few flowers produce spectacular large red hips.

I don’t know the name of this little beauty (the photo does not do her justice), as the ticket fell to bits some years ago and I dutifully copied her name onto a plastic plant label in ‘indelible’ ink which has vanished.  I think she might be Cornelia (or possibly Celestial), although she’s better looking than the pictures in my books.  She straggles bravely in a pot, as I have nowhere to plant her out.

And here is Madame Hardy, who dates from 1832 (France), a beautiful damask rose which does very well in my little bed, growing bigger every year and producing dozens of these aristocratic white flowers with a green eye, with several layers of petals (the confusing technical term is ‘fully double’).  She smells wonderful too.

This is my greatest pride and the first rose I planted, Chapeau de Napoléon, a ‘moss rose’ imported from France in 1826 but supposedly found growing wild in Switzerland in 1820.  It’s named from the tricorne-hat-shaped buds which are covered in prickles like a horse chestnut (and, strangely, smell of apple).  Every year, I think it’s had it, as it clings forlornly to the fence, then late in the day it produces just a few of these incredibly luxurious cabbagey blooms, which have a scent that is out of this world.

Finally, to put things in perspective, this is my next door neighbour’s climbing rose, probably a ‘Kiftsgate’, which she put in only a few years ago and now must have climbed twenty feet up her tree.  I regularly have to lop off eight- or ten-foot shoots as they invade my space!  In fact she says she has to come round to my garden to see it, as it grows more on my side of the fence than hers.

One day I will move to somewhere that has lots of space and lots of sunshine, and then I will be able to justice to my love of old-fashioned roses.  Meanwhile I do what I can…

Explore posts in the same categories: Life: living of, my house, roses

Tags: Celestial, Chapeau de Napoleon, climbing rose, Cornelia, damask rose, Frau Dagmar Hastrupp, Kiftsgate, Madame Hardy, moss rose, rugosa

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