MONTY’S PLANT OF THE WEEK

ROSE CHARLES DE MILLS

I have scores of pink roses but one stands out above all the rest. This is the gallica ‘Charles De Mills’. Each bloom is a cherry-pink many-petalled ruff and looks exactly as though a sharp knife has sliced across the face of the flower so it is completely flat, like a saucer crammed with petals. It has a short flowering season – essentially June – but is worth waiting 11 months for. It is exotic, elegant, seductive, fragrant and yet as tough as any shrub in the garden and will last for decades, needing only a trim every October and the removal of very old or damaged stems.