- Roses with Large Blooms:
Varieties for Garden Impact
A rose in full flower can transform a garden. Large, many-petalled blooms draw the eye through a border, bring colour to a quiet corner or create a beautiful focal point when grown in a pot.
For a striking display, it is often a case of choosing a few roses well. Look for varieties that complement one another in colour, form and fragrance, while each brings a character of its own.
Five English Roses to Consider
Princess Alexandra of Kent™ (Ausmerchant)
English Shrub Rose
For unabashedly generous flowers, Princess Alexandra of Kent is difficult to overlook. Its unusually large, bright pink blooms are deeply cupped and wonderfully full of petals yet retain an elegance that keeps them from ever appearing cumbersome.
The fragrance adds another layer of interest. Beginning with a fresh Tea character, it develops notes of lemon before revealing hints of blackcurrant.
Its rounded habit makes it a lovely choice for the border, where those substantial pink flowers create an irresistible focal point.
Golden Celebration® (Ausgold)
English Shrub Rose
Few colours enliven a garden quite like a rich golden yellow. Golden Celebration brings warmth and light with its magnificent, cupped flowers, creating a particularly lovely sight when the blooms are caught by the summer sun.
Its generous flowers have a relaxed quality that sits naturally within traditional and more informal planting schemes, while its fragrance gives another reason to grow it somewhere close enough to enjoy.
Try pairing golden yellow roses with cooler shades of blue, violet and purple. The contrast allows both colours to appear all the richer.
Bathsheba® (Auschimbley)
English Climbing Rose
Impact does not have to remain at ground level. A climbing rose can draw the eye upwards, transforming a wall, arch or pergola into part of the garden itself.
Bathsheba brings this vertical dimension beautifully. Its warm apricot colouring softens towards the outer petals, giving the flowers a wonderfully romantic appearance.
Allow it to climb around an entrance or over an arch and, as the plant matures, individual blooms become part of a much larger display. Its distinctive Myrrh fragrance completes the effect.
English Shrub Rose
With its rich colouring and beautifully formed flowers, Boscobel brings warmth without overwhelming its neighbours.
The blooms have a particularly lovely sense of fullness, making them easy to appreciate both from across the garden and at close quarters. Their warm pink tones also make Boscobel an appealing companion for softer pinks, apricots and creamy yellows.
For a fuller display, consider planting roses such as this in a group rather than individually. Repetition gives the eye somewhere to settle and can turn several plants into one generous sweep of colour.
English Shrub Rose
For something altogether softer, Emily Brontë offers an elegant counterpoint to stronger pinks and yellows.
Its delicate colouring makes it particularly useful where a gentler transition is needed within a planting scheme. Rather than demanding attention, it sits comfortably amongst other plants, allowing its flowers to be discovered as you move through the garden.
Its fragrance brings further character, making this a rose worth planting somewhere that invites you to linger.
A memorable rose garden is rarely about choosing the greatest number of varieties. A little repetition and restraint can often create a much stronger effect.
The generous blooms of these English Roses naturally command attention. From the glowing pink flowers of Princess Alexandra of Kent to the rich golden cups of Golden Celebration, their size, form and abundance give them a wonderful presence in the garden.
Whether planted as a focal point, repeated for a generous sweep of colour or trained over a wall or arch, these larger-flowered roses bring an abundance that is difficult to overlook.
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Rose Bloom Shapes: A Guide to the Different Types of Rose FlowersNo two roses are quite alike. Colour and fragrance may be what first catch the eye, but look a little closer and it is often the shape of the flower that gives a rose its particular character. Some blooms are simple and open, their golden stamens on full display. Others are made up of layer upon layer of petals, slowly unfurling into wonderfully intricate flowers. These different rose bloom shapes are the result of centuries of careful breeding and selection.
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Roses with Large Blooms: Varieties for Garden ImpactA rose in full flower can transform a garden. Large, many-petalled blooms draw the eye through a border, bring colour to a quiet corner or create a beautiful focal point when grown in a pot.
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Best Fragrant Roses for Autumn: Scent and Colour Beyond SummerThe fragrance of a rose is never quite fixed. Temperature, humidity, time of day and even the stage of the flower can all influence how its scent is released and experienced. As the warmth of summer begins to soften into autumn, cooler mornings and greater moisture in the air create different conditions for fragrance, and a familiar rose can reveal itself in a rather different way.
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Using Red Roses to Bring Richness and Depth to the GardenA red rose has a wonderfully compelling presence in the garden. Amongst a sea of green, even a glimpse of crimson catches the eye, drawing you closer for another look. Red can sometimes have a reputation for being difficult to use, particularly alongside softer colours. Yet the palette is far more varied than we might first imagine. From clear crimson to deep, velvety tones, red roses can bring warmth, richness and depth to a garden without overwhelming it.
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Roses for the Last Night of the PromsThere are few evenings quite like the Last Night of the Proms. Familiar melodies fill the Royal Albert Hall, the audience joins in and music heard and loved for generations is given fresh life once more. This year’s programme got us thinking about the curious connections between music, stories and the names of some of our roses. From Elgar and the Malvern Hills to Britain’s long relationship with the sea, each offers a thread to follow from the concert hall into the garden.
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Climbing Roses for Arches, Obelisks and PillarsThere is always room for another rose. When borders are full, the answer is often simply to look upwards. Climbing roses can transform arches, obelisks and pillars into wonderfully abundant garden features, bringing flowers and fragrance to eye level and above. They can tumble over an entrance, rise from the middle of a border or soften a simple post with foliage and bloom. And, with the right rose and a little thoughtful training, they need surprisingly little ground space to make quite an impression.
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Moving a Rose: A Step-by-Step GuideRoses are wonderfully resilient, and sometimes a change of position is all that is needed to help one flourish. Perhaps a border is being redesigned, a rose would benefit from more sunshine, or a much-loved plant simply needs a little more room.
