Roses with a history
David Austin English Roses add distinctive looks and fragrances to your garden
If you love roses and are an Anglophile, David Austin’s English Roses named for characters, places and various themes from English history are the perfect roses for your garden. For spring 2020, gardeners have three delightful David Austin English Roses to grow, all soft-hued with distinctive looks and fragrances.
Named for English novelist Emily Bronte, the rose with the same name features a twotone flower in soft pink and apricot.
“Emily Bronte” adds a splash of soft color to the garden, and its blush pink dense petals have a shimmer of palest apricot.
Toward the center, the apricot color darkens, adding visual depth and charm.
“In scent, ‘Emily Bronte’ delivers an unexpected plot twist. Flowers open with a fine tea fragrance, waning in mid-bloom and an Old Rose fragrance comes on strong, followed by teasing hints of lemon and grapefruit,” says Michael Marriott, technical director and senior rosarian at David Austin Roses Ltd. in Albrighton, England.
Adding to the rose repertoire, for spring 2020 there are two more new David Austin English Roses: “Tottering-by-Gently” and “The Mill on the Floss.”
“Tottering-by-Gently” has a light musky scent with fresh notes of orange peel.
Named for a British cartoon series by artist Annie Tempest, which has appeared weekly since 1993 in Country Life Magazine, “Tottering-by-Gently” is an outstanding soft yellow shrub rose with a relaxed look.
It adds interest to wildflower gardens, large perennial borders and informal plantings in grasses.
Marriott says, “It blooms freely with repeat bloom of masses of single yellow flowers held in large, open sprays from early summer till frost. If not deadheaded, it will produce a very fine crop of large, long-lasting orange-red rose hips.”
“The Mill on the Floss,” named for the novel by English writer George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), published in 1860, the English rose is a full-bodied garden rose with deeply-cupped flowers with dense petals, initially mid-pink.
Once fully open, the flower color verges on lilac-pink and pales, heightening the distinctive carmine-red picotee edging.
David Austin’s English Roses are known for combining the classic flower forms, perfume and bushy habit of antique roses with the expanded color range and repeat flowering characteristics of modern roses.
They are bred for disease resistance and can be grown in full sun or partial shade.