My Top Roses – and Why I Love Them

I have a bit of a love hate relationship with roses. I love roses for their beauty, fragrance, romanticism and – if you choose repeat flowering shrub roses – their long lasting blooms. But I hate them because I’m not very good at growing them! Black spot and the pruning duties that often accompany roses often floor me! So I thought I’d share five shrub roses which seem to have taken pity on me. Despite my inadequacies as a rose grower, they perform beautifully. For this reason, they are my top roses.

Top Roses…

Jacqueline du Pre

First up on my top roses list has to be Jacqueline du Pre. This glorious shrub rose is in my sunny border next to my patio and is possibly my favourite plant on the planet! She (all my roses are girls in my head) is named after Jacqueline du Pre the celebrated cellist, who was an incredible talent and died far too young. Check out the link to see her play, conducted by her husband. It’s so utterly moving.

Anyway, while I was probably first drawn to this rose by the name, I’m so pleased I was. The Jacqueline du Pre rose looks slightly old-fashioned, with wonderfully creamy curling white petals which have a hint of a blush about them. These petals set off the gold stamens which have a delicious raspberry colour at their base.

Other than the beauty, her lovely light musk fragrance, and the sentimental way the rose reminds me of the musician, the other reason I love this rose so much is she is robust. Jacqueline (we’re now on first name terms!) grows vigorously and flowers relentlessly but only reaches about 3.5 ft tall and has a 3 ft spread. So she doesn’t swamp other plants. I have a plum coloured Penstemon which my neighbour Desi gave me, and Astrantia Rubra Major growing near her. I feel they complement her beautifully. But like the true virtuoso she is, nothing upstages her.

Wildeve

Wildeve also flowers and flowers. For months she treats you to masses of large, plump, pink blooms which to my eye have a hint of apricot about them. She’s larger than Jacqueline, (Wildeve grows about 4ft tall and 5ft wide), but like Jacqueline, Wildeve is a robust and healthy shrub rose. Having said that, mine has had blackspot recently. But to be honest, all of my roses have struggled with it this year. You can read more about black spot and how to treat it here 

Wildeve can look lovely in a container and thanks to her long arching branches I’ve seen some people training the rose to form a hedge. But that sounds far too complicated to me. I simply have her in the middle of my sunny border, looking and smelling utterly wonderful, alongside Campanula Lactiflora.

Top Roses – Little White Pet

If you have limited space, want a rose for a pot or the front of a border, Little White Pet is perfect. She grows just 2ft tall and wide but is no shrimp in terms of impact. Little White Pet produces immense clusters of petite pompom like white blooms. She treats you to this display all Summer long and well into Autumn – from June to October. The flowers emerge from gorgeous pink buds. They’re so pink that you think the flowers are surely going to be too. It’s such a surprise when they open and are milk-white. The flowers are complemented by her small dark green leaves which are absolutely black spot free. Hurrah! That alone certainly qualifies her as one of my top roses.

I wouldn’t buy Little White Pet for her fragrance, it’s pleasant but very light. And if you don’t like deadheading, you will hate Little White Pet. It’s a major task keeping on top of her flowers. But that’s purely because there are so many of them! Now that’s what I call a ‘quality problem!’ Personally I find it quite therapeutic at the end of a day, gin and tonic in hand, snipping off her dead heads and getting her ship-shape to wow the world the next day.

Boscobel

Boscobel is on the Gardener’s World list of top roses for fragrance and I can understand why. She smells wonderful. The experts say the fragrance is myrrh with hints of elderflower, pear and almond! I’m far too unsophisticated to get all that; I’m the sort of person who chooses wine based on the attractiveness of the label! But whatever the combination of smells is, it’s incredible.

What I can appreciate is Boscobel’s colour. Her red buds open to the most glorious large, densely packed, salmon-pink flowers which become a hotter pink colour with age. They almost shimmer with vibrancy. And when I say the flowers are densely packed, I mean it. Someone has counted and apparently there are 78 petals per flower!

Boscobel is once again a repeat flowering shrub rose, which means you get all this loveliness from late Spring until the frosts. For impact I have two up against my very scruffy, dark green shed, where the colour contrast with her flowers is really strong. These are behind Box hedges, to try to make the shed look smarter than it is! I’m not sure if I’m succeeding but the Boscobel and Box are both doing their very best.

Boscobel only grows about 3ft tall and 2.5ft wide so again I think she’d be knockout in a container, in a sunny spot by a door way. Imagine all that lovely fragrance wafting in. Alternatively she makes a fantastic statement in a bed. I think pairing her with pale mauve or blue plants such as Nepeta, Salvia or Lavender would be really impactful.

Top Roses – Golden Celebration

I remember wandering around a garden centre and being struck by a really fantastic array of massive containers with roses in them under planted with erigeron. I instantly resolved to recreate the effect for myself, and ever since have had such a container at the front of my house. At the moment the pot is planted with the repeat flowering shrub rose, Golden Celebration.

This is on my list of top roses for a number of reasons. It has very large, deeply cupped golden yellow flowers on slightly arching stems which creates a very graceful display. The flowers are repeating and the fragrance is really wonderful – sort of fruity, citrussy.

But what makes Golden Celebration a particularly brilliant choice for someone wanting a yellow rose, is that she is black spot free. Yellow roses are apparently more prone to blackspot. Despite this, and the fact she’s positioned near my climbing pink rose Zephirine Drouhin which can become riddled with the stuff, Golden Celebration is so far black spot free!

She can grow rather large – 4.5ft tall and 4ft wide. Thanks to her size and the fact she produces arching stems, I’ve seen her used as a small climber or as a real statement at the back of a bed. But mine is in my pot, where the egg yolk yellow centres of the Erigeron flowers wonderfully pick up the yellow of Golden Celebration’s blooms. Gorgeous!

By the way, if you want more planting ideas for Erigeron you can see them here.

Tell Me Your Top Roses

So that’s my list of 5 top roses, all wonderful repeat flowering, shrub roses which seem to be kind to a terrible rose grower like me! I’m sure you have suggestions of your own, if so, please do share. I’d love to know which roses really work for you.

Happy gardening x