The pink English rose in the garden under my bedroom window is exquisite, and it is wonderfully fragrant too. Nothing I could say here this morning is up to expressing one tiny scrip of its perfection. Each and every bloom leaves me breathless.
This cultivar is called "Heritage", and it is one of first (and most popular) David Austin Roses. To create it, Austin crossed an unknown seedling with a white floribunda (Iceberg) and a pink shrub rose (Wife of Bath). Through the latter, my rose has some illustrious forebears including a hybrid tea rose (Madame Caroline Testout), a floribunda (Ma Perkins) and Austin's own magnificent Constance Spry.
Living as far north as I do, my rose requires a lot of coddling. Every few years it expires and I have to replace it, but I always do because it was my departed soulmate's favorite. If it could be done, I would tend a thousand heirloom and David Austin Roses. On winter nights, I pull out rose references and dream, but the reality is that it is too cold here for most of the roses I would love to have.
How grand to to look out the kitchen window on a balmy summer morning and see a whole garden of roses with literary names: Maid Marian, The Lady of Shalott, Emily Bronte, Sceptered Isle and Sweet Juliet, to name just a few. Imagine that!