Tag Archive for: fragrant roses

Tips for choosing roses

tips for choosing roses
It’s like falling in love – you know when you’ve found the right rose. But you still need to check it’s easy to grow, which this one is: the Flower Carpet® Fragrant Shrub Rose Champagne (known as the Showpiece™ Champagne rose in the southern hemisphere and Canada).

If you’ve ever grown a modern rose, you’ve probably wondered why some people are still nervous about growing roses? We’re talking about that whiff of fear that still lingers, inherited from a past time when there were rose specimens so fussy and delicate that they could make a stately home’s head gardener weep. Happily since then, a lot has happened. Modern rose breeders are a practical bunch, and they’ve tackled the issues that needed to be dealt with. Thanks to them we now have a list of care-free options to choose from, with the best of these being the Flower Carpet range of roses. Having said that, you do want to keep your eyes open as you pick your rose, so here are some tips for choosing roses…

1. Feast your eyes. The reason you’re planting a rose – let’s be honest – is likely to be all about the flower so take a good look around and see what leaps up and hits you in the heart. This is not an overstatement because roses are special: maybe because they are so entwined in the culture that washes around us? So make a short list of rose crushes then move onto the next step…

Just look at this foliage – no wonder it’s produced so many blooms. Do your research and relax knowing your rose isn’t going to be tricky. (This is Flower Carpet® Fragrant Shrub Rose Berry, or Showpiece™ Berry rose in the southern hemisphere and Canada.)

2. Background checks. Due diligence never hurt anyone and where roses are concerned, this is definitely worth doing. And that’s because there are still a lot of lovely old fussy roses out there being offered to people who don’t mind a challenge and uncertainty. What you want to do is take a look at each of your rose options in turn, checking that they don’t have a reputation for being difficult. Look for words like, robust, easy-care, lush, disease free, bullet-proof, and (if you’re a very new gardener) idiot-proof. If it turns out that your candidate has a dodgy performance report card, don’t be distracted by descriptions like gorgeous, delicious, luscious because if you have trouble getting the rose to grow well, you’ll probably never have a chance to see a bloom.

3. Take a hot tip. And now for the best tip of all when it comes to choosing roses. It comes from the people whose roses these are, but know that these roses have also been industry awarded and have a significant, happy following amongst un-washed gardeners around the world. Here it comes… plant a Flower Carpet rose. More specifically, plant one of the Flower Carpet® ground cover roses, or one of the Flower Carpet® fragrant shrub roses (also known as the Showpiece™ Roses in the southern hemisphere and Canada). There are five different colour options available in the fragrant shrub roses, and a further twelve amongst the ground cover roses to choose from – in other words, oodles of choice. Flower Carpet ground cover roses grow wider rather than taller, producing hundreds of smaller blooms and the Flower Carpet shrub roses are a bushy shape and produce larger blooms that are fragrant. Whichever version, Flower Carpet roses have a proven track record for being disease resistant, lush, easy to grow and producing many flowers. Of course this makes sense because they’ve all been bred by Noack Rosen (Germany) which is a hugely respected family of plant breeders.

tips for choosing roses
This is the original Pink Flower Carpet® ground cover rose in a setting that shows how brilliant modern well-bred roses can be. It’s easy to grow and covers itself in hundreds of blooms over many, many months. And many, many people worldwide have fallen in love with it over the years, planting it into their gardens.

4 fragrant flower garden ideas

Daphne Perfume Princess™ packs an impressive punch in terms of perfume power. This one is the classic pink version and it’s easily the easiest daphne of all to grow.

Music and perfume pack the most powerful punches when it comes to emotional hooks. Remember dancing under the stars on a jasmine-scented evening? If you hear that song and catch the same perfume on the breeze, you’re transported straight back in time. Rather than wait for chance, it’s easy to create your own happy-scented-memory bubble just by growing perfumed plants – on a window ledge, balcony, patio or in the soil. Here are 4 fragrant flower garden ideas to get you started: then just plant and take a deep breath….   

1. The one and only Perfume Princess. In the cooler months there’s no other flower that has the same intense perfume as a daphne. And of the daphne options you’ll find at the garden centre, no daphne compares with Daphne Perfume Princess™. There’s a snow white version, and a classic pink and both have the waxy, almost crystalline florets in larger-than-normal clusters. Daphne Perfume Princess is versatile too: being happy to grow in a container and stay relatively modest in size, or to grow into a very nice bushy shrub if planted directly into the soil. With this much flexibility it’s easy to position your daphne right where your nose can enjoy the perfume:  in a pot on the balcony; or planted in the garden right beside a welcoming garden bench.

perfume power
Daphne Perfume Princess™ also comes in crystalline white with just as much perfume power.

2. Spring bulbs that catch our breath. Who doesn’t stop to put their nose into a pot of flowering bulbs in springtime. It’s super easy to plant your own to have on the balcony or even to bring indoors to sit on the table at lunchtime. In late winter, just pick a container, fill it a third full of free draining potting mix, then tuck your bulbs in and cover with the rest of the potting mix. Sit it out where it will get rain and sun, and before long you’ll spot little green spikes nudging upwards. Which bulbs do you choose? Perfumed ones of course, like the small narcissus aka jonquils. In yellow, cream, splashes of orange and soft pinks there are heaps to choose from. Or freesias, with their trumpets of scent that come in rainbow colours. Hyacinths are lovely and their fragrance is why people sit them on their kitchen windowsills in late winter. To see more options go online and search with ‘perfume’ and ‘bulbs’…

Some of the best and simplest spring bulbs to grow are the narcissus aka jonquils. These are paperwhites and they smell delicious.

3. Fragrant Roses are brilliant. And probably the easiest, best performing perfumed rose to plant and grow these days is the Flower Carpet® Fragrant Shrub rose (known as the Showpiece Fragrant Shrub rose in the southern hemisphere and Canada). These roses don’t need expert pruning or spraying, they grow into a nice green bushy bush and produce fairytale, large, fragrant roses. There are five colours to choose from (with more on the way), and you can grow them in the ground or in a container. Again, a terrific option for balcony, patio or a whole easy-care rose garden full of them.

perfume power
These days we’re lucky to be able to plant super easy to grow rose bushes like Berry which is one of the new Flower Carpet® fragrant shrub roses bred by the same family that created the original Flower Carpet® ground cover roses.

4. Wisteria wonderland. If you want to create a springtime scented show-stopper moment, nothing beats wisteria. Purple (over white) packs the most fragrance, and you can train it so that the flower racemes dangle just overhead in a scented cloud. Look around your place and plan where you’ll train it as the vine grows. Up and over the back door; over a pergola to shade the patio; along the balcony’s balustrade so that you’ll be wrapped in a shawl of perfume and be screened from passers-by.

Hanging clusters of dreamy-scented flowers – what’s not to love about wisteria?