WINTER PLANTING
Roses
To pick a bunch of fragrant roses from your own garden is one of summer's greatest pleasures and is the reward for any effort put in over winter. As some of summer's most beautiful and longest flowering shrubs, their winter season of austerity is easily forgiven. Gardeners who love the colours, forms and fragrances of the world's most beloved bloom will always find room for roses. It's time to plant them now.
Roses for picking
There is something about a vase of garden roses that is even lovelier than a shop bought bunch. All roses, both old-fashioned and modern, look beautiful in a vase. But some roses were specifically bred as cutting roses. These are the hybrid tea roses with large high centred blooms borne singly on top of long straight stems. The best of the classic red picking roses include ‘In Loving Memory’ and richly scented ‘Lasting Love’. In attentiongrabbing orange red tones there is Sam McGredy’s esteemed ‘Paddy Stevens’, and newer addition, scented ‘Mama Mia’. Favourite hybrid tea roses among pastel shades are creamy yellow ‘Elina’ and ‘Hamilton Gardens’. ‘Blackberry Nip’, by New Zealand rose breeder Rob Somerfield, is a must plant if you love a deep purple rose with a huge fragrance. At around 1.2m with a bushy habit it fits well in a smaller garden. Another with exceptional perfume is soft pink ‘Aotearoa’.
Roses for colour
Roses come in every colour except true blue. Some gardeners plant roses as part of a specific colour theme, perhaps in an all white garden, or sunshine yellow highlights with blue flowering perennials or a pink themed romantic garden. Others prefer to grow a rainbow of roses. A bright bunch of different coloured roses is a sight to behold.
Some roses blend two or more colours on the one bloom. Bi-coloured favourites include the historic ‘Peace’ rose and eye catching ‘Raspberry Ice’. Striped roses always get noticed. Possibly the oldest striped rose still grown is Rosa ‘Mundi’ dating back to 1581.
Floribunda means lots of flowers. Look to the floribunda roses if you want your plants to be smothered in bloom for a mass display of colour in the garden. Floribundas are often shorter and bushier than hybrid tea roses with flowers in large clusters rather than a single rose per stem. The most famous floribunda of them all is ‘Iceberg’ still widely planted in large groups for its showy display of pure white flowers. This extremely healthy rose blooms repeatedly throughout the season but is especially showy in spring and autumn.
Other much loved floribunda roses in white are ‘White Romance’ with especially dark green foliage and ‘Margaret Merrill’ a strongly perfumed rose in creamy white that blooms throughout summer. An excellent choice in clear lemon yellow, ’Serendipity’ is highly disease tolerant and keeps its healthy good looks well into autumn with near continuous flowering. Lovely in lilac, the floribunda rose ‘Forget Me Not’ bred by New Zealand breeder Bob Matthews produces mass upon mass of lilac roses with golden stamens.
Roses for fragrance
All roses are scented, but some are more scented than others. Some of the most potently perfumed are those that have been around for centuries. Ancient rose varieties are still grown for their essential oil, a key ingredient in expensive perfumes. They are the great great grandparents of our most fragrant modern roses.
The advantage that ‘modern roses’ (those bred in the last hundred years) have over many old-fashioned roses is that they bloom on much smaller bushes and their generous flowering repeats throughout the season. English rose breeder, David Austin was so successful at bringing the best of the old rose traits back into modern freeflowering roses that his name has become an international brand. Austin roses have the looks of old fashioned roses with flowering and growth habits better suited to modern gardens.
More petals often means more perfume. Climbing rose, ‘Compassion’ is no exception to that rule. Bred in 1973 it remains one of the most popular climbing roses and has won awards all over the world for its fabulous fragrance.