Roses by any other name
HERE’S a scandal if ever there was one: the popular ‘Queen Elizabeth’ rose, raised and named within months of our Queen coming to the throne, is not even British. It’s American! Bred by Dr Walter Lammerts of California, it was released in 1954 and, actually, broke new rose territory. It has hybrid tea-like flowers, but they are borne in clusters, more like a floribunda. This inspired the rose world to recognise a brand-new class of roses, which we now call the Grandiflora roses.
Today, ‘Queen Elizabeth’ is widely grown throughout the world, but it is particularly suited to the British climate: its tough petals seem to be unaffected by rain! The fairly open flowers are warm, pale pink, with darker backs to the petals.
There are several other popular ‘queenly’ roses:
‘Queen Mother’ was released in 1991 to honour the 90 birthday of our Queen’s late mother. It’s a beautiful patio rose that flowers fairly continuously from June to October. The blooms are pale soft pink, with deeper pink towards the centre; the colours are richer in cooler weather. It grows to just about 2ft (60cm) and has a light scent. For many years it was the most widely sold rose in England.
Other pink roses linked to ‘queens’ include: ‘The Queen’s London Child’, ‘Queen of Bourbons’ (syn. ‘Bourbon Queen’) and ‘Queen of Sweden’.