Charles Darwin (Auspeet) David Austin featured rose of the week

This strongly perfumed yellow rose has particularly large flowers and the perfume changes depending upon the weather conditions.  The perfume varies from  a soft floral tea rose to lemon.  The blooms are upward facing which is a real bonus as so many rose flowers droop towards the ground.

In habit, the rose is vigorous reaching a height of 120cm and a width of  110cm, this rose is also disease resistant which is fairly uncommon amongst roses.

We have three of these roses planted together at Moosbach in the top rose garden.

This rose can be described as eye-catching due to the large size of the individual flowers and their orientation, i.e. facng upwards.  I think that a round flower bed with three of these planted together in the centre of the bed would make a stunning show piece in any garden.  David Austin recommend planting three roses of the same variety together in a triangle, 1 meter apart.  In time this will look like 1 substantial plant, of course not everybody has either the space or the budget to buy 3 roses at a time but if you consider how many years of joy this will bring you and visitors to your garden then it really is value for money.

Good companion planting for yellow roses are dark blues and purples like lavender and Salvia, these have the advantage of not growing too tall and are therefore ideal for the edge of a round border.  I’m in favour of the use of perennial plants over annual plants as there is a better return on time invested but you could use annuals if you wish.

I would recommend using David Austin’s mycorrhizal Fungi when planting roses, one packet has enough for 3 roses and this helps the plant to get established and extends the root system giving the plant a larger area to extract water and nutrients from.  Rose fertilizer should be used directly after the plant has finished blooming as this encourages the next set of blooms and ensures that the quality of the initial blooms is maintained.  In winter, you can do nothing better for your roses that applying a generous mulch of well-rotted horse manure, in summer you will reap the benefits with better bigger blooms.  You must make sure that it is well rotted as fresh manure takes nitrogen out of the soil as part of the decomposition process and you want to add nitrogen, not take it away.

There is an instructional video on how to plant roses on the David Austin Website – how to plant a potted rose and how to prune a shrub rose.

We do have a limited supply of these roses available on our website and you can order one by clicking here.

On the subject of companion planting, white and blue flowers go exceptionally well with roses and one of my favourite colour combinations are blue and yellow but blues also work especially well with light pink roses like Harlow Carr, Gentle Hermione and Gertrude Jekyll.  Good choices of blue perennials are: delphiniums, Salvia, Lavender and Campanula.  Peonies are also a classic combination with roses and have the added bonus of a long season of interest with purple leaves when they first emerge, stunningly beautiful flowers and fiery autumnal leaves.  Here at the Moosbach Garden we have a combination of perennial and tree peonies but remember that tree peonies can grow as big as 2 metres so give careful consideration as to where you plant them.