Garden Queen - a true queen among roses

The top five roses in my garden include 3 hybrid teas and two floribundas.

I’m sorry that this article is limited to only 5 roses but you have to stop somewhere and the list could go on and on.

If you asked me to choose another 5 favourite roses I could do so  with ease.

But let’s take a look at my top five roses for today only – because tomorrow I could change my mind as there are so many to choose from.

So here they are:

My top five roses

Mr Lincoln –  a very large deep red rose
Double Delight – red. white and pink popular rose
Garden Queen – pinkish mauve – hard to describe but it’s lovely!
My Granny – pink pom-poms all over the bush
Deloitte & Touche – pink and orange roses and buds in profusion

• I have chosen Mr Lincoln because the bush is huge and so are the roses. I like a large, healthy rose tree rather than those spindly bushes that have been pruned back to the ground. (And I will talk about my pet pruning gripe another time.)  Mr Lincoln is a dramatic red rose with a wonderful scent and is completely trouble free in my garden.  It never complains and it gives me bunch after bunch of huge, sweet-smelling red roses for the vase.

• Double Delight is a firm favourite not only with me but with rose lovers all over the world.  This beautiful red, pink and white rose is generously displayed all over a strong growing rose bush. The scent is superb and the bush is large and healthy. It always seems to be in bloom. Lovely roses for the vase too.

• Garden Queen is another huge hybrid tea rose – in fact, it’s the biggest rose in my garden. The colour is a dark pink that tends almost to mauve. The bush is large and healthy  and grows extremely well if it gets enough water. It is also disease resistant. Garden Queen is a rose with the “wow” factor. And the perfume is irresistible.  A truly “wow” rose.

• And now we have two of my favourite floribundas.  I have  many more but today I will stick to two.  My Granny is such a generous bloomer that you simply have to love her.  The rose  is covered all year  round in medium-sized, pink pom-poms.  As they fall off so new pom-poms are produced in clusters.  They are low growing, profuse and always in bloom. I have these planted all along a black wrought iron, dividing garden  fence. And the sight is truly lovely.

• Deloitte & Touche is a firm favourite world-wide – and with reason. I have a  group of five of these floribundas grouped together in the lawn on a bank and it is always a mass of colour.  Against the green lawn this is a stunning display.  I have found the bushes to be amazingly healthy. They grow at an even knee-length height and they are simply covered with trusses of pink and pale orange blooms.

Try any of these roses and you won’t be disappointed. They are all healthy, easy growing and prolific.  What more can you ask for in a rose?  And to cap it all, the hybrid teas I mentioned are in my list of top ten fragrant roses.

So there you have it.  A personal description of the top five roses in my garden.