Any rose producing round, tomato-like hips with long, wriggly appendages is a rugosa. The edible, orange-red hips turn sweeter after a frost and provide a good source of antioxidants and vitamin C. While the comparison with tomatoes or crab apples is more common, they remind me of Christmas tree baubles. Continue reading “Hip-Bearing Roses: Rugosas”
Rosa ‘Dream Come True’
I’ve found myself in the middle of a series of posts about flowers that change colour as they open. Though I don’t have pictures to prove it, people who grow Rosa ‘Dream Come True’ say as the petals gradually redden, the yellow pales to creamy white. Continue reading “Rosa ‘Dream Come True’”
Rosa ‘Queen of Denmark’ | Pink Alba Rose

I’m aware that rose cultivars achieve something approaching immortality when small parts of the plant are passed from person to person down the generations, but it still seems amazing to think that Rosa ‘Queen Of Denmark’ has been around since 1816.
Its bicentenary came and went with less fanfare than that accorded a human queen, but the important thing is that people are quietly growing it around the world. You may know it as Rosa ‘Königin von Dänemark’. Continue reading “Rosa ‘Queen of Denmark’ | Pink Alba Rose”
Wordless Wednesday: Heart of a Rose
Beautiful Ways To Train And Support Rambling Roses

A rambling rose will grow against almost any garden structure and can be encouraged to scramble into a tree. Most ramblers need to be tied to, or woven around, their support while the canes are still young and flexible.
If you only check one thing before buying a rambling rose, make it the height, which should be a good match for the structure it’s going to be growing against. A common mistake is to choose too big a rambler: you’ll have to keep cutting away potential flowering stems to prevent your rose from completely swamping the arch, arbour, obelisk or trellis. Here are some ways to support rambling roses that will show off these beautiful plants to their best: Continue reading “Beautiful Ways To Train And Support Rambling Roses”
Even More Pink Roses

The Friendly Friday prompt is The Colour Pink. If you come here often, you’ll know I never need much of an excuse to bring out the roses. So here goes! Continue reading “Even More Pink Roses”
Rosa ‘Princess Alexandra Of Kent’

An English Rose that pretty much has it all. The flowers are huge, fragrant, and very distinctive because of their deeply cupped flower form, although you can’t really appreciate the depth of the bloom from this angle. The colour is classic rose pink. It’s a shrubby type of rose, but fairly compact, with stems sturdy enough to bear the weight of the flowers. Continue reading “Rosa ‘Princess Alexandra Of Kent’”