NINE ROMANTIC ROSES

1. These full-petalled magenta flowers ooze with the richness of warm raspberries. They have an open, slightly arching habit, making them perfect for the centre of borders, where herbaceous perennials can weave through the stems. Flowers late May and again in the autumn.

2. A charming plant that weaves through trees and shrubs to attain 10m of growth with little effort. It produces flowers with the same apparent ease, carrying sprays of semi-double cream blooms with petals that expose ruffs of golden stamens.

3. If you’re looking for the perfect rose for cutting, try this plant. Its crimson buds are elegantly sculpted into fine points and carry an intense, sweet fragrance that fills the air like few others. It requires a warm location on well-drained soils away from winter wet to perform at its best – a spot by a sheltered wall is ideal.

4. Perhaps the ultimate rambling rose is this delicious coral-pink flowering form. Come summer, watch the hues wash through the flowers as they open and inhale its abundant scent, rich in floral, fruit and clove tones. It festoons boughs and structures with inflorescences reminiscent of opulent cottage gardens.

5.

‘MADAME ISAAC PEREIRE’

‘SEAGULL’

‘PAPA MEILLAND’

‘ALBERTINE’ The cerise-pink blooms of the rubrifolia, sometimes known as Rosa Glauca, shine out among the borders where this rose is best suited. I include it in most of my garden schemes because it is such a hard-working shrub, delivering beautiful flowers, eye-catching foliage of greypurple and attractive hips in the autumn.

6. Named after the rose painter Henri Fantin-Latour. The origins of this plant are something of a mystery, but it is worthy of cultivation simply because it produces densely packed vivid pink petals that drip with a floral citrus scent.

7. A loosely petalled rich pink bloom that was the mainstay of the herbalist’s garden in the 13th century. Attar of Otto (rose oil) is extracted from these, an essential oil considered to be the most exclusive. And since it takes 30 blooms to make one drop, it’s easy to see why.

8. The double white flowers are delicately flushed with pink and beautifully scented. It’s the perfect choice for a north-facing or shady spot; it’s quick to establish and grow and rewards you with wave after wave of blooms throughout the summer.

9.

‘FANTIN-LATOUR’

var.

‘MADAME ALFRED CARRIÈRE’

‘GÉNÉRAL JACQUEMINOT’ A rich crimson bloom of almost 30 petals, each with a white stripe on the underside. This plant, originally grown in the 1850s, has such a rich scent that when it was first introduced to America it is said that, weight for weight, it was eight times more expensive than gold.