A rose by any other name would smell as
sweet… or would it? Here you’ll find the most fragrant for your garden.
Roses can offer fragrances as rich and
exotic as any perfume counter – fruity or spicy, headily exotic or cucumber
cool. With the help of leading perfumer and rose expert Robert Calkin, we chose
a mixture of shrub rose, easy-care varieties to grow among other flowers in the
border, and climbers you can train up a wall, round the door… wherever you’ll
enjoy their delicious fragrance. All will put up with harsh winters and hot
summers – never mind their delicate looks, roses are tough. Nice of them will
flower for months at a time as long as you remember to dead-head them, but we
couldn’t resist one gorgeous old rose that flowers only once – gloriously!
1. Graham Thomas
Graham
Thomas
Magnificent large climber
Many yellow and apricot roses offer a soft,
smoky tea scent – think Lapsang Souchong rather than PG Tips. ‘Graham Thomas’
has one of the best fragrances, as does ‘Climbing Lady Hillingdon’ (15ft) –
which offers luxuriant foliage and masses of yellow blooms all summer.
2. Stanwell perpetual
Stanwell
perpetual
Good for wildlife
This lovely old Burnet variety (5ft x 5ft)
has all the grace of a hedgerow rose, but flowers through summer and autumn,
well into December. The scent, reminiscent of rose geranium leaves, is the
perfect match for the delicate, shell-pink blooms and pretty grey-green
foliage. This rose also thrives in the poorest of soils.
3. Gertrude Jekyll
Gertrude
Jekyll
Superb all-rounder
Reliable, free-flowering and powerfully
scented, ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ (main picture and below) is gorgeous both in bud and
in full bloom. If you have room for only one rose, make it this one. Makes a
medium shrub (4.5ft x 3.5ft) or short climber (6-8ft).
4. Climbing etoile de hollande
Climbing
etoile de hollande
Best crimson climber
A velvety crimson rose should have a
sensuous, sultry scent to match – but most are disappointingly feeble. Three
cheers, then, for the curiously masculine fragrance of this ravishing climber
(18ft): deep, rich and spicy, with a hint of cedar wood.
5. Zephirine drouhin
Zephirine
drouhin
Classic climber
An ideal candidate for a shady north wall,
this thornless climber (12ft) can be a martyr to black spot, but is worth the
trouble for its incomparable sweet, fruity fragrance.
6. Scepter’disle
Scepter’disle
Sweet border rose
This small (4ft x 3ft), pink-cupped shrub
rose has a strong, sweet, slightly aniseed fragrance that is reminiscent of
sweet cicely
7. Buff beauty
Buff
beauty
Pervasive perfume
No other rose fills a garden like ‘Buff
Beauty’ – a blend of musk and old rose, with a dash of tea and a hint of
violet. Makes a large bush (5ft round) or small climber (8-10ft).
8. Madame legras de st germain
Madame
legras de st germain
Exquisite old rose
With curtain of perfectly formed, silky
white blooms delivering pure olfactory bliss, who cares if Madame Legras’
(8-10ft) season of glory is relatively brief? To ask for more would simple be
greedy. Train the thornless, pliable stems over an arbour, and for three
rapturous weeks you’ll be in scented heaven.
9. Jude the obsvure
Jude
the obsvure
Large-flowered English rose
Huge, full, apricot-yellow flowers evoke a
luscious fruit cocktail of mango, lychee and guave. A disease-resistant, sturdy
English rose (3.5ft x 4ft) that likes drier conditions.
10. Quarter Saisons
Quarter
Saisons
Historic shrub
Closely related to roses grown in the
Eastern Mediterranean for attar of roses (rose oil), this historic damask
variety (5ft x 5ft) has a sumptuous, spicy, old-rose fragrance. Used by the
ancients to honour Venus, it has never been surpassed. Rose expert Robert
always says, if sunshine had a smell, this would be it!
Plant now!
Container-grown roses can be planted at any
time of year. Choose a spot where they’ll enjoy at least a few hours of sun
each day, enrich the soil with compost and a handful of general fertiliser,
water generously, and mulch. Keep watering throughout the first season – once
established, roses are very little trouble, but it’s worth getting them off to
a good start.
