Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day: rambling with roses

Roses have been superb this year, everywhere I've looked. Including my garden. Actually I'm moderately chuffed as I like to think the particularly good performance of the rose featured here is down to my pruning (OK, it's probably the weather, but I can dream...).

The question is, What is it? Well, feeling suitably chastised by Helene's query as to my type of tulip, I've done a lot of ferreting.

It was originally planted by my father (who loved roses and was always rooting cuttings in jars), which means it must have arrived in the garden in the 70s or early 80s. It's a rambler, fuchsia-pink (as you can see) with clusters of smallish-sized flowers, not repeat blooming, but flowering over several weeks (it's just gone over now, but we've had at least a month of flowers). Not really very scented.

Forearmed with the information that "It looks like a David Austin rose," (thank you, Fryer's), and armed with the meagre description above, I accosted one of the men on David Austin's stand at Hampton Court Flower Show last week.

He looked resigned (how often do people ask this sort of thing over the week, I wonder) and came up with three possibilities: Alexandre Girault, American Pillar (definitely not, that's a single), Excelsa.

I thought he must mean Super Excelsa (which shows the dangers of relying on Google) and I plumped for that as it doesn't have the strong fragrance listed for Alexandre Girault. BUT a play on the  find-yourself-a-rose feature on Peter Beales's site told me that Super Excelsa' s date of birth is 1986 (too late).

A play on Ashridge Nurseries' website brought up Crimson Showers, looking perfect, EXCEPT David Austin says this flowers to September. No good.

However, Crimson Showers was born from a seed of Excelsa in 1951 (a theme has developed). And - ta rah! - more ferreting on Peter Beales reveals that Excelsa burst into the world in 1909. Which just goes to show you should trust the experts and not get confused by Google.

It never really did particularly well in its original position, on a north-facing fence that grew progressively shadier over the years, so I took a cutting (rooted in a jar of water) about four years ago and planted the result in full sun, weaving it into a flimsy support. (The rose was what kept it upright during the high winds last winter.) 

It looks great against the neighbour's pink-tinged bush behind.

I think my father would be chuffed too.

GBBD is hosted by May Dreams Gardens. Pop over and see what other gardens are doing this July around the world.

 

Comments

[Nell Jean]

It is a beautiful Rose. Excelsea? I love when cuttings do what we hoped.

I had to look up the meaning of chuffed. I would have guessed the opposite. Maybe I was thinking of miffed.

[Alana]

I don't know much about growing roses - I never knew they could be rooted in this way. I have one rose on my property - a wild rose. Maybe I'll try to propagate it. I, also,had to look up the meaning of chuffed. My vocabulary increased today.

[commonweeder]

Rose names are very difficult. I have several farm roses that I felt it proper to name by myself - Rachel, Mable et al. I am very impressed by your propagating skills.

[Helen]

Ah, two nations divided by a single language! It's always interesting to see what words are shared and what aren't. I'd like to say I have very green fingers, but honestly, rooting roses like this is well worth trying and seems to be more successful than not. Just tear off a non-flowering, soft wood shoot, put the end in water (covering a jar of water with silver foil and then piercing the foil with the cutting so that it dips its end in the water) and wait to see what happens.
Commonweeder, I love that you have a gaggles of girls out there in the garden.

[Helene]

Great detective work! It’s always nice to know what you got in your garden, for so many reasons – one of course is so you can look up each plant online and see how to treat it and where it should grow etc. I started gardening as pretty much a novice 15 years ago, and I have learned so much by just learning about the plants in my own garden.

[Helen]

Thank you! I so agree, Helene. It's amazing how much you can pick up just from a small selection of plants.